Tampa, FL – More than 30 people gathered at the First United Church of Tampa, Feb. 14, for Raíces en Tampa's “Stop the Heartbreak” Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) panel. Some audience members traveled from Gainesville, Auburndale, Clearwater and Lutz to Tampa. Oscar Hernandez of Raíces en Tampa provided transportation to two members of the community who, due to Florida's restrictions on the undocumented, did not have a license or vehicle.

Catherine Lim and Catalina Gutierrez, both members of Raíces en Tampa, moderated the panel. Among the panelists were Jaqueline Cruz of Faith in Florida, Cielo Gomez of Casa Chiapas, Daniel Barajas of Young American Dreamers and Civil Rights leader Carlos Montes who traveled from East Los Angeles.

Five questions were asked of the panelists – each question was developed and debated for over three weeks among the Raíces en Tampa members.

“We wanted to make sure every panelist was able to respond to the best of their ability,” said Alicia Gazga of Raíces en Tampa. “The panelists were chosen because of the current work they do and the work they have done in the past.”

Stirring debate among the panelists, some of the questions were: “What are your opinions on Obama's Executive decision in November 2014 around extending Deferred Action to parents?” and “What are the potential side effects of having a marked license for undocumented immigrants?”

To the second question, Daniel Barajas responds, “Marking someone as undocumented reminds me of when Nazi Germany marked the Jewish with the star of David. If we fight for equality, then why are we only getting everything but equality?”

One of the most debated questions was how to proceed with the fight for drivers licenses to be issued to the undocumented in the state of Florida. Jaqueline Cruz and Daniel Barajas both agreed Raíces en Tampa's current messaging needed to be modified to add “safer roads” in our list of demands. Currently Raíces en Tampa organizes primarily against deportations and has used the lingo, “licenses are a basic right.” Carlos Montes, who comes from the state of California, which just started issuing drivers licenses in January 2015 to the undocumented states, “We are the ones who are fighting for licenses. We as the people either affected or as those organizing must remember why we are fighting for licenses to begin with. The politicians might only see it as a safe roads concern but to the undocumented and their families, the battle is entirely for equality and entirely against deportations.”

The panel concluded with a fundraiser barbeque in celebration of unity. Raíces en Tampa thanks all who attended and is looking forward to their next rally scheduled against the Tampa City Council on Feb. 26, starting at 6:00 p.m. The facebook event for the rally is here: https://www.facebook.com/events/807926392632953/. Be sure to attend and help continue fighting for equality and a stop to deportations!

#TampaFL #immigrantRights #CarlosMontes #comprehensiveImmigrationReform #RaicesEnTampa

No, this does not mean that the Republicans have suddenly changed their colors when it comes to immigration. In fact, the Principles for Immigration Reform that they released last month reveal that the Republicans have not budged an inch from their reactionary stance. In fact, a week later the Republican congressional leadership announced that there is little chance of immigration reform this year.

Congressional Republicans versions of immigration reform stick to the same reactionary policies: the militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border and a “zero tolerance policy” to anyone attempting to cross in the future; the nationalization of e-verify (employment verification), with the purpose of making it nearly impossible for an undocumented immigrant to find work; the creation of a guest worker program; and a denial of citizenship to the undocumented – unless they arrived as children and complete a complicated and costly process.

Republican immigration reform is not reform at all – it is an overhaul of our system in a way that serves the interests of the wealthy and chokes the interests of undocumented workers. If e-verify were to exist in every workplace in the country, tens of millions of undocumented workers in this country would have to go to incredible extremes simply to put food on the table. The status quo is better than Republican ‘reform.’

There is nothing progressive about Republican plans to force undocumented workers further into the shadows. These are the millions who filled the streets of America’s cities on May Day 2006—the Day Without Latinos. These same workers are fighting workplace raids and play an integral role in the movement for immigrant rights. A guest worker program will only add to the woes of immigrant workers, putting workers and families in the hands of big businesses that only seek to work them for all the labor they can get (at the cheapest costs) before sending them back to their home country.

So why are some student Dreamers voicing cautious support for these principles? It is not because of some rightward swing in the leadership of our movement. Rather, it is a move made from a position of practicality and desperation, and a move only too well understood by many organizers in a movement that has suffered numerous setbacks.

In 2010, the DREAM Act failed by five votes in Congress, never to be resurrected.

Then last year, the Senate immigration reform bill passed – and it contained many of the evils proposed by Republicans, but also offered a path to citizenship for all undocumented immigrants. It died in the House of Representatives.

In response to pressure from the movement, President Obama issued an executive order offering Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) for undocumented youth who meet strict parameters. DACA offers work relief and suspension of deportations for a chunk of the 11 million undocumented. While the DACA is a step forward, we want President Obama to expand this program to include all parents and adults—“Deferred Action for All”. When President Obama signs Deferred Action for All, he will be signing to keep families together and halt their pain and suffering.

While Congress plays political games, 1100 people are deported from the U.S. every day. Since Obama took office in 2009, nearly 2 million families were forced to suffer the traumatic pain of deportation. This reality is nothing short of criminal and creates a cloud of brutal repression over every immigrant community in the country.

Mass deportations are a national tragedy for us; but they are a major victory for the 1%. Looking at it strategically, deportations hold back one of our generation’s most dynamic and militant mass movements from achieving advances in social justice and equality. One cannot argue that the country’s rich and powerful do not benefited from the panic and chaos that these deportations cause. So long as 1100 people are deported daily from the U.S., immigrant communities will continue to live in fear and undocumented workers will fear to demand higher wages. 1100 daily deportations means the immigrant rights movement is stuck in the mud, in a daily struggle to respond to the latest atrocity. Every time the movement tries to take a step forward – the DREAM Act, DACA, elements of CIR [Comprehensive Immigration Reform] – we are hit over the head with the reality that more than a thousand of our people just left us. It is a daily beat down that nags at the hearts and minds of every organizer in the movement.

But we cannot despair, for now is the time to advance our struggle. Deportations need to end, and any attempt made by the movement to halt individual or mass deportations is a worthy fight. Time and time again, the movement performs civil disobediences outside ICE offices and in front of buses filled to the brim with people on their way to the Mexican border. The movement sends organizers into detention centers across the country to organize hunger strikes and gather information on conditions within these privately owned prisons. These actions need to continue and be amped up. Militancy is not simply a tactic anymore – it is a necessity if we are to survive.

With one arm of the movement defending our people, the other arm must advance the struggle locally. The government does not represent our interests, nor do the agendas of the Republicans and the Democrats, both parties of the 1%. We must return to the roots, work from where our communities are at, and lead them to new levels of struggle with clear demands.

Families cannot continue to be separated, so we must make it harder for this to happen. Drivers licenses for all can keep the undocumented a step ahead of the police, ensuring that they will not be deported simply for driving to work or trying to pick up their children from school. Racist discriminatory laws such as SB-1070 in Arizona need to be resisted, turned back, and a stake driven through their heart, never to rise again.

Undocumented workers need to be defended – they deserve the right to work, the right to organize, and the right to live without fear of deportation.

Undocumented college students need in-state tuition, a basic demand for equality. In short, we need to fight for freedom, an immediate freedom that is both liberating and empowering. Whatever can be gained on the local level must be gained without haste.

The Legalization for All Network, one of the newest national networks to emerge in the movement, is growing rapidly as it calls for an end to the militarization of the border, the defense of undocumented workers, and an end to all deportations. Legalization is the basic demand of the masses. It allows those who want citizenship to achieve it, while everyone with residency can live with equality and security. Remember how powerful the 2006 mega-marches were? Let’s make the politicians and Wall Street respond to us. If we as a movement advocate for these positions, and defend them and advance them through the people’s struggles, then we will have firm footing from which we can carry the struggle forward to levels we cannot even imagine today.

#UnitedStates #UnitedWeDream #comprehensiveImmigrationReform #LegalizationForAllNetwork

But the reality is that the Republicans will block any legalization bill, while business interests will push the passage of expanding temporary worker and employment based visas. In the meantime immigrants are facing a wave of repression, with the Obama administration having deported a record 2 million undocumented people. So the piecemeal approach is most likely to end up being more of the same for the undocumented: more deportations, no legalization and a temporary reprieve for undocumented who came as children and qualify under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

So why is Obama retreating in the face of Republican opposition to immigration reform? One reason may be a partisan consideration. By making this concession, Obama is trying to keep the immigration issue in the media, hoping to benefit in next year’s election by looking ‘reasonable’ in the face of Republican opposition to immigration reform, even if this means doing little to nothing to advance any immigration reform. But another factor is that many of Obama’s policies are, in fact, moderate Republican ones. Take a look at his Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Two of the most controversial parts of the ACA, the insurance exchanges and the individual mandate, were both Republican ideas that were embodied in the Massachusetts health care reform under Republican governor Mitt Romney.

Fundamentally, this reflects the fact that both the Democratic and the Republican parties represent the 1%, the tiny minority who own half the total wealth in the U.S. and control the large corporations that dominate the economy. While the two parties have their differences, with the Republicans wanting more repression of immigrants with militarization at the border, and the Democrats are more interested in meeting the needs of business through expanding temporary and guest worker programs, they serve the same interests.

Up to now, there have been three views of immigration reform. On the one hand, there were advocates for the undocumented, family reunification and workers, who supported legalization and stopping deportations. They also opposed more militarization of the border, more workplace enforcement, more temporary and guest workers, cuts in family reunification and diversity visas and criminalization of the undocumented and expansion of using local police and sheriffs to crack down on immigrants. More and more of these forces are uniting behind a demand that the president issue a ‘Deferred Action For All’ that expands the DACA program to all the undocumented. This would allow the undocumented to come out of the shadows and be able to work and drive legally, while laying the basis for a stronger push for legalization in the future.

Then there were the right-wing Republicans in the House of Representatives, who opposed legalization, and wanted more militarization, more workplace enforcement, more temporary, guest and employment visas and supported criminalization of the undocumented and expansion of ICE-local police programs, as seen in the SAFE act that passed a House committee on a straight party line vote. The House Republicans also support a piecemeal approach so that they can pass what they want (more repression of immigrants) and block what they don’t want (legalization).

In between was the “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” or CIR approach, as seen in the Senate immigration reform bill. CIR tried to combine the other two opposing views on immigration reform, as a way of getting Republican support. But with the overall atmosphere of repression, the Senate bill got steadily worse, with a lot more militarization of the border. The House bipartisan bill was widely known to be even worse, but it never got off the ground as the House Republicans pulled support for any bill with legalization and rallied around a piecemeal approach in opposition to CIR. With Obama’s concession to the House Republicans, the CIR approach is basically dead for now.

Backers of the CIR approach have two choices: they can go along with the President’s approach, either openly or trying to hide behind the fiction that CIR is still possible in the House. This will end up with some pro-business changes, such as more temporary worker and employment-based visas, but no legalization and the continuing deportation of record numbers of the undocumented. Or they can join with advocates of legalization and stopping the deportations by backing the Deferred Action For All or DAFA, which would both benefit the undocumented and put pressure on the House to deal with legalization.

Masao Suzuki is a supporter of the Legalization for All network and a regular contributor to Fight Back! newspaper on the economy and the immigrant rights movement.

#SanJoséCA #RepublicanAgenda #BarackObama #immigrationRights #comprehensiveImmigrationReform #AffordableCareAct #DACA

In the first four years of the Obama administration, there were as many deportations of undocumented immigrants as in the eight years of Bush. Deportations under Obama are now on track to hit 2 million by the end of this year.

While the Obama administration claims that this crackdown is necessary to pass Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR), it is pretty clear that the bipartisan CIR is dead for now. There is no bipartisan House bill, with the Republicans who were working with Democrats on a bill backing out. The federal government is partially shut down – not Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) repression though – and the gap between the Democrats and Republicans has never been wider. With the upcoming debt ceiling limit looming, Washington D.C. is all about the budget, not immigration reform.

The Obama administration is also claiming that it is focusing on criminals. But most of those deported have committed no crime. In addition, hundreds of thousands of undocumented parents of U.S. citizen children, and even more parents of undocumented children, have been deported, tearing apart families.

ICE is also doing another round of workplace audits, the so-called ‘silent raids’ that can force the firing of thousands of undocumented workers. While they are not deported, they are driven further underground. Further, their chances of legalization under a future CIR bill could be harmed, in that the current CIR calls for a continuous work record, which won’t exist for undocumented forced to work totally off the books and under the table.

There is a growing demand in the Chicano, Mexicano, Central American and Latino communities for the president to expand the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to all undocumented. Why is the government deporting people who might be eligible to legalize under a future immigration reform bill?

Ultimately, what is needed is legalization for all undocumented. But with no legalization law on the horizon, partial steps such as Deferred Action would help the undocumented. They would be able to work legally and would not be subject to ICE raids. Deferred Action also doesn’t have all of the bad elements of the Senate CIR bill, which would further militarize the border, increase workplace repression, reduce family reunification and end the diversity visa program that brings in about half the immigrants from Africa.

There are shortcomings to Deferred Action. While some states are trying to deny those receiving DACA driver's licenses, many others would allow them to drive. Those on Deferred Action would still not eligible for Medicaid or federal subsidies for health insurance under the new Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). And of course there is always the possibility that a new administration would even target those on Deferred Action for future deportation.

But by allowing the undocumented to come out of the shadows, they would not only benefit personally, but the movement would have a stronger basis to press for full legalization. The editors of Fight Back! support the growing demand for Deferred Action for All as a practical way to push back against the tsunami of deportations that is happening right now.

#UnitedStates #deportations #governmentShutdown #deferredAction #comprehensiveImmigrationReform #legalizationForAll #DACA #driversLicences

Tampa, FL – 25 people gathered outside of Florida Senator Marco Rubio's office on Sept. 7 to demand legalization for all and equality for undocumented immigrants. The protest included Tampa Bay Students for a Democratic Society, Occupy Tampa, the Farm-worker Association of Florida and Raíces en Tampa. Held at Rubio's Tampa office located on the University of South Florida's campus, activists marched and united in chants like, “Rubio! Escucha! Estamos en la lucha!”

An immigrant rights caravan using the slogan “Remember November” began their journey on Aug. 4, traveling through the 27 congressional districts in Florida. The Remember November caravan is pushing for Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) to apply to all immigrants.

Blanca Moreno, one of the people in the caravan, is a Mexican immigrant. During the protest Moreno said, “Without farmworkers, no one eats. Without undocumented immigrants having a card that gives us equality, we are not a country that protects its people. We must not allow the Strengthen and Fortify Enforcement Act (SAFE Act) to take over.” Moreno then led the crowd in a chant of, “No SAFE Act in Florida. Si se puede!”

The SAFE Act would make it possible for any U.S. stat to write its own immigration bill and to intensify any harassment or targeting against its undocumented population. The SAFE Act would ensure that even if the Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill passes, any state like Florida could call for an increase in deportations, incarceration of immigrants or further expanding militarization.

Xicano activist Dave Gonzalez with Occupy Tampa said, “A few days ago there were complaints about a foul odor coming from a rural part of Tampa. Upon further investigation it was found that the odor was from pesticides sprayed in agricultural farms. People seemed more concerned about the smell than the well-being of the farmworkers who worked the fields, and no real news reported on that matter. If we left undocumented immigrants out, we cannot advocate for equality as a whole.”

Marisol Márquez with Raíces en Tampa said, “We gathered to let politicians like Senator Marco Rubio know we are not counting on them to bring the necessary change. We cannot sit around and let them decide the fate of 11 million undocumented immigrants. Legalization for all is what we need and we will continue to work towards it, not only in Tampa but in the entire U.S.”

#TampaFL #immigrantRights #undocumentedImmigrants #comprehensiveImmigrationReform #legalizationForAll #SenatorRubio #SAFEAct

So around the country people will call their senators to demand that they support legalization for all undocumented immigrants; that they reduce the time to reach legal permanent residency; that they eliminate the militarization of the border and surveillance drones from the bill; and that they stop the deportations now.

The current Senate bill has more than a ten-year wait for undocumented immigrants to become legal permanent residents. This and other barriers will act to exclude many from legalization.

Right now hundreds of immigrants are dying as they try to cross the border because the militarization of the border has driven them to harsh desert areas. The current Senate bill could lead to military drones flying over millions of Americans who live within 100 miles of the border – 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Under the Obama administration, there has been record number of deportations. The call-in day will demand that Senators support a moratorium on deportations while the legalization process is starting.

Call the two U.S. Senators for your state. Find their phone numbers here: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

Call the US Representative in your district by putting your zip code in the box in the upper right corner of this page: http://www.house.gov/representatives/.

For more details, go to facebook.com/LegalizationForAll.

#LosAngelesCA #deportations #immigrationRights #comprehensiveImmigrationReform #legalizationForAll #borderRepression

While the Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill that Congress is debating includes a path to legalization, the path is painfully long, restrictive and expensive. The process they’re proposing could exclude millions of immigrants from ever getting a green card or citizenship. Immigrants who enter into the new Registered Provisional Immigrant (RPI) status would be stuck in a second class limbo for well over a decade before even finding out if they’d qualify for a green card. The bill being debated is also heavy on repression against immigrants in the workplace and would dramatically ramp up militarization of the border.

The Legalization for All Network believes that immigrant workers are not criminals and should not be treated as such. The Network says that the immigrant rights movement can win something better than what Congress is discussing, but only if we mobilize to bring mass pressure in the streets.

Toward that end, protests are planned around the country for the May 28-31 week of action. In Chicago there will be a protest outside of a fundraiser where President Obama will be speaking. In Jacksonville, Florida, the protest will take the demand for legalization for all to the offices of Senators Nelson and Rubio. In Los Angeles, immigrant rights activists will send Senator Feinstein the message that “we deserve more!” In Milwaukee, Youth Empowered in the Struggle (YES) will tell Senator Johnson that the people want a legalization process for all undocumented immigrants, an end to border militarization and internal enforcement, and an end to guest worker programs. In Provo, Utah there will be a candlelight vigil in front of the Courthouse to “share our grief and empathy for low-case deportations, the separation of families, obstacles built against undocumented students, and a continued broken immigration system.” In Tampa, Florida the Dream Defenders have a whole week of activities planned, including a call-in day, mass petitioning and attending a city council meeting as part of the campaign for drivers licenses for all, culminating in a rally at Florida Senator Marco Rubio’s office.

The Legalization for All Network encourages you to join the week of action by planning something in your city during the week of May 28-31. Email LegalizationForAll@gmail.com to get your action added to the list. See the list of protests and the call to action at facebook.com/LegalizationForAll.

#UnitedStates #immigrantRights #comprehensiveImmigrationReform #legalizationForAll

San José, CA – On Monday, January 28, a bipartisan group of eight Senators, four Democrats and four Republicans, announced a framework for “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” or CIR. On Jan. 29, President Obama will be putting out his position, marking the beginning of an effort to “reform” U.S. immigration law this year.

Unfortunately the Senate proposal is not what the community needs and justice demands; indeed, it is often quite the opposite. Instead of legalization for all, the proposal resorts to wording reserved for criminals, saying that the undocumented had to “pay their debt to society” through a background check, fines and back taxes. Those who pass, and have paid taxes would get a temporary visa and still not be eligible for government benefits. They would have to learn English and civics just to apply for legal residency, which is not the case for other immigrants.

In addition, the proposal says that the undocumented who manage to get by all these obstacles would have to wait until everyone who was waiting in line gets their legal residency. With some of the waiting lists for visa lasting twenty years or more, this could mean that the undocumented would have to wait for an entire generation for legalization.

Even worse, the proposal says that the undocumented must show a history of work and current employment to get legal permanent residency. Thus those who apply for a temporary visa in hopes of permanent residency must keep a job in order to qualify. What this would do would turn the undocumented into a huge group of foreign workers who must accept any job at any wage in order to get permanent legal residency in the United States. This is not a legalization program; this appears to be a mammoth -numbering in the millions – guest workers program.

Over the past fifteen years, deportations have soared from about 20,000 a year during President Clinton’s first term to around 400,000 a year today. This has split up thousands of families. The militarization of the border has increased, causing thousands of people to die trying to cross into the United States. The number of undocumented has actually dropped from about 14 million five years ago to about 11 million today.

Yet the Senate proposal insists on the worn and inhumane “enforcement first” doctrine, saying that no undocumented would get legal residency until the borders are certified as “secure”. The proposal goes further, in calling for the development of tracking system for everyone entering the United States on temporary (tourist, student, etc.) visas by plane or ship. While past enforcement has mainly been aimed at Mexican and Central Americans coming over the border, this proposal would target more Asians and South Americans who make up a growing minority of undocumented immigrants.

The Senate proposal also calls for an expansion of employment verification of legal status. While the proposal does not explicitly call for a national identification card, it does state that they “believe requiring prospective workers to demonstrate both legal status and identity, through non-forgeable electronic means prior to obtaining employment,” which sounds like a national identification card to me.

The Senate proposal, while coming down hard on undocumented workers and their families, wants to make it easier for business to get all the workers that they want. The proposal calls for granting legal residency to foreign students who get a Masters or PhD in science, math, and engineering from U.S. universities. It calls for expanding temporary worker programs for agriculture, low-skilled jobs, and indeed any business that says that they can’t get American workers.

The proposal does call for easing the legalization of undocumented who came as children and for agricultural workers. This shows the importance of the militant and mass struggle waged by undocumented youth to pass a DREAM act and eventually led to the President’s order for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA. But given all the hurtful policies proposed, it would be better to have narrow bill for speeding legalization of these groups, and in particular the DACA undocumented youth, than a “comprehensive” bill that does much harm. In addition the bipartisan proposal mentions the need to reduce the waiting list for legal immigration, which is the key to limiting unauthorized entries in the future. However there is absolutely nothing specific mentioned, unlike the other proposals, making it more likely that the Senators are paying lip service to the idea.

Last but not least, there are many important policies that the bipartisan proposal does not mention. There is no mention of stopping the deportations that are breaking up families and traumatizing whole communities. There is no mention of changing the immigration policy to recognize the rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered (LGBT) people.

The Senate bipartisan proposal reflects the problems of top-down immigration reform, where business interests, the agricultural industry, and anti-immigrant forces have more influence than working people in the community. In order to win immigration reform that does more to help and not more to hurt immigrants, their families, and their communities, a bigger and more militant mass movement is needed. A central part of this will be response of Chicanos, Mexicanos, and Central Americans who have been hit the hardest by immigration injustice in this country. But it is also important that Asian Americans, South Americans, Arab Americans, and others with large immigrant population become more active in the struggle for justice for immigrants.

#SanJoséCA #immigrationReform #comprehensiveImmigrationReform #legalizationForAll