Related to the mass deportations are the terrible conditions of US detention centers. Even more horrifying are the massive numbers of undocumented children detained at the border for unknown amounts of time. Many of the children are Central Americans, but they are being deported to Mexico! Now immigrant burial sites are being uncovered in Texas, a direct result of how the US handles, or perhaps refuses to handle, immigration. There is no responsibility being taken by the US Government, and there is also no mention of anything to stop these abusive practices. As a response, the people are organizing themselves and fighting back!

Some notable fights of 2014 include the much-needed victory by groups like Students for a Democratic Society, United We Dream-Tampa Bay, Students Working for Equal Rights, and Florida Immigrant Coalition. Florida's Republican Governor signed a bill that would make in-state tuition a reality for non-status students, or students signed up for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). In June 2014, following over fifty simultaneous house and work raids, people including the groups Voces de La Frontera and Youth Empowered in the Struggle took to the streets demanding a stop to the deportations. Youth militancy is spreading in the face of escalating ICE repression.

Another increasingly popular mass organizing approach is to demand states like Florida issue driver's licenses for the undocumented. The people understand licenses can help stop deportations, and organizing for drivers’ licenses in state after state unites people in action. On May 1 in Minnesota, over a thousand immigrant rights supporters marched to the Capitol building demanding licenses for all the undocumented.

In addition, immigrants in California won their battle for the state to issue licenses for the undocumented. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) knows that issuing licenses to the undocumented of California threatens the control it has on immigrants. This is why the DHS recently rejected the proposed design of the driver's license. DHS wanted the words, “Not for Federal Identification” on the front of the license instead of on the back. They also want the license to be colored-coded or have a new design to differentiate it more from the other California licenses. This would expose undocumented immigrants and make them more vulnerable to harassment and deportations.

We must not let these attacks discourage us; we must continue organizing! From Florida, to California the people have had enough. When one family is destroyed every 1.3 minutes, the people must rise up! Let us continue joining fights like: licenses for all, deferred action for all, legalization for all, and to also keep in mind these are battles in the fight for complete equality and liberation!

Marisol Márquez is a member of Raíces en Tampa and also a member of Freedom Road Socialist Organization. The current campaign for Raíces en Tampa is Driver's Licenses for All Undocumented – Florida. To become a supporter of the campaign, sign this petition.

#TampaFL #immigrantRights #driversLicences

Minneapolis, MN – With the new legislative session underway, the drivers licenses for all campaign is kicking back into high gear in Minnesota. The immigrant rights movement is mobilizing to press the state legislature and Governor Dayton to pass a bill that would grant basic equality for immigrants.

Currently undocumented immigrants cannot get drivers licenses in Minnesota. Due to extreme weather and inadequate public transportation, the thousands of immigrants that live in Minnesota are forced to drive for everyday tasks, like getting to work and taking children to school. Many of the immigrants that are deported and separated from their families first get ensnared in the criminal justice system when they are stopped for driving without a license. Once in the criminal justice system, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) intervenes and starts deportation proceedings against many people who have done nothing more than drive to work.

According to Eder Alarcon of the No More Deportations campaign, “I think that as members of the immigrant community we need to struggle for drivers licenses to have access to one of the most important and necessary means of transportation in our state. If Minnesota grants drivers licenses to immigrants it would reduce one of the main causes of immigrants being detained and deported. Drivers licenses are one of the main needs of immigrants to be able to get to jobs that there’s no other way to get to without driving.”

Several other states allow immigrants to get drivers licenses, and immigrants’ rights activists have won recent victories in places like Illinois and Washington D.C. which now allow immigrants to get drivers licenses.

Immigrant rights activists in Minnesota have mobilized for several years to try to get the state legislature and the governor to allow immigrants to get a Minnesota drivers licenses. When the Democrats won control of both houses of the state legislature and the governor’s office in 2012, hopes were high that drivers’ licenses for all could finally be passed after several years without success due to Republican control of the Senate, and prior to 2010, a Republican governor. Yet even with Democratic control of both houses of the state legislature and with a Democratic governor, it has still been an uphill battle to get the drivers license bill passed.

Last year a vigorous campaign succeeded in getting the Minnesota Senate to pass the drivers licenses bill, SF271. Hundreds of Latino immigrants and progressive supporters packed one committee hearing after another until the bill passed the Senate. But as last year’s legislative session wound down, the House version of the bill, HF348, stalled and Governor Dayton signaled he was reluctant to support it. At the end of the session several people staged a hunger strike at the Capitol over the issue, but in the end the House and the governor wouldn’t budge, killing the bill for the year. Since it passed the Senate last session, this year the bill just needs to pass the House and be signed by Governor Dayton.

The driver’s license campaign in Minnesota is led by the community organization Mesa Latina, with support from the whole immigrant rights movement. On March 14, Mesa Latina led a meeting that rallied more than 200 people at the Waite House Community Center to kick off the campaign to win drivers licenses this year. At that meeting a march at the Capitol for drivers licenses for all was announced for Wednesday, March 26 at 3:00 p.m., with more mobilizations to come as the legislative session advances. Mesa Latina is also encouraging people to sign the online petition to support the Drivers License bill in the House, HF348.

#MinneapolisMN #NoMoreDeportationsCampaign #driversLicences #MesaLatina

Tampa, FL – Braving rain and traffic, people from across the Tampa Bay area rallied outside City Hall, demanding “Driver’s licenses for all undocumented!” Over 30 protesters held up umbrellas, signs and a banner reading, “Licencias ahora, licenses now!”

Led by Raíces en Tampa, a community group, the protesters are organizing to pass a Tampa City Council resolution in support of licenses for the undocumented. Last month, they organized a call-in day to City Council members. Now they are out in the neighborhoods gathering signatures for a statewide petition. Today’s event urged city council members to attend. Unfortunately, city council members were attending a banquet.

Ana Lamb, one of the protesters, said, “Is this what tax dollars go to? Fancy banquets instead of licenses?”

Right now, there are an estimated 1 million undocumented immigrants in the state of Florida and over 11 million in the U.S. Most states, like Florida, do not allow the undocumented to have licenses. Still, many drive to jobs, school, hospitals, houses of worship and other places. This puts many at risk for fines, arrest, detention and deportation. In fact, most deportations result from being pulled over without a license. In the U.S. there are approximately 1100 deportations each day. President Obama has amassed over 2 million deportations during his term.

Jared Hamil, with Raíces en Tampa, spoke to the crowd, “We want an end to deportations now. We want the politicians in Tallahassee and those here in Tampa like Mayor Bob Buckhorn and the city council to support ‘Driver’s Licenses for All’ in Florida. We need Governor Rick Scott, who vetoed a bill last year that would’ve given DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals] recipients their driver’s licenses, to stand with us, or get out of the way! The politicians must act and give us ‘Licenses for all!’”

LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens), Student-Farmworker Alliance, and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) all joined the protest. People from the neighboring cities of Largo, Clearwater and Saint Petersburg drove in to attend. Several police cars were present as police watched from across the street. When protesters came to the doors of City Hall, they taped a giant letter, signed by all the protesters and addressed to the politicians of Tampa, urging them to support licenses for the undocumented.

At the close of the rally, Marisol Marquez of Raíces en Tampa announced, “We need everyone to join this cause!” Marquez continued, “We want people in their own cities to take up this issue. We want them to organize for driver’s licenses and an end to deportations! Our first step is licenses, our big goal is legalization for all.”

Sign the statewide petition – https://www.change.org/petitions/support-licenses-for-all-undocumented-immigrants-in-florida

Facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/dl4allflorida

#TampaFL #immigrantRights #LicensesForAll #legalizationForAll #driversLicences #RaicesEnTampa

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