Milwaukee, WI – On April 6, members and affiliates of immigrant rights activist group United We Dream held actions around the country to raise awareness of a significant issue. DACA+ (Deferred Action for Children Arrivals extension) and DAPA (Deferred Action for Parents of Americans) will return to the Supreme Court after a delay caused by Justice Scalia’s death in February. As the court date approaches, groups in Albuquerque, Milwaukee, and many other cities are holding actions, making noise and taking the streets in attempts to direct media attention toward the families affected by the measures.

On the night of April 6, in Milwaukee, students, workers and others marched down the busiest street of the city’s downtown, mariachi band in tow, chanting in support of their brothers, sisters, parents and selves, all eager for a favorable ruling on DACA+ and DAPA. The march was organized by Youth Empowered in the Struggle (YES), a radical immigrant rights group comprised of progressive university students and community members.

Blas Antimo Perez, a YES member and first generation Chicanx, said he was marching for “my undocumented parents. Although I do not benefit from DACA, having been born in the U.S., I stand with my brothers and sisters who deserve a better experience in this country. DACA and DAPA mean not having to live with paranoia, they mean having the freedom and comfort to plan for the future. These policies will allow self-determination for people who are constantly unable to fulfill their dreams because they are burdened by manmade borders ­ a detriment to Latinxs in this country.”

DACA+ and DAPA has the potential to better the lives of millions of immigrants currently living in fear of deportation, separation from their families and forced removal from their jobs and homes.

The Supreme Court is expected to hear the case April 18.

#MilwaukeeWI #MilwauekeeWI #StudentMovement #OppressedNationalities #ChicanoLatino #UnitedWeDream #DACA #YouthEmpoweredInTheStruggleYES #DAPA

Gabriela Genova is a member of DREAMers Moms Orlando, Florida. Genova recently traveled from her home in Orlando to Phoenix, Arizona to join the United We Dream Congress and the hunger strike. Fight Back!: What is the hunger strike about?

Gabriela Genova: The hunger strike is an action that started on Sunday, Feb.16 and ends March 3, 2014. The strike is happening in Phoenix, Arizona and it is an action called by two organizations: National Day Laborer Organization [NDLON] and Puente Human Rights Campaign [Puente]. Six very brave immigrants, Hermina Gallego, Anselma Lopez, Lourdes Hernandez, Alejandra Sanchez, Jose Valdez and Jovana Renteria began their strike on the Feb. 16. All six strikers have family members who are currently being detained in immigration detention centers.

Fight Back!: What made you travel to Arizona to join the strikers?

Gabriela Genova: I'm an undocumented Argentine mother who has been fighting for the undocumented for many, years. One of the strikers, Alejandra Sanchez, is a long-time friend of mine and I needed to be there to support her and the other five hunger strikers. I needed to be there for them, their families and for all of those who are affected by the simple existence of these detention centers. I've seen first-hand how unfairly we are treated for simply not having a few papers to prove our ‘worth’ to be allowed to stay in the U.S.

Fight Back!: What was it like being in Phoenix, and with the six hunger strikers?

Gabriela Genova: Arizona is sometimes freezing, or windy and cold at night. It was beautiful to see these six hunger strikers not budging despite the weather and despite the wind. There were many supporters constantly, coming and going and joining the strikers every day and every hour. There were doctors always present monitoring the health conditions of the strikers and there was overall great support for all of those involved. I was there the entire day of Saturday, Feb. 22, and fasted with them while I was there.

Fight Back!: You also attended the 5th United We Dream (UWD) 2014 Congress which started on Feb. 21 and ended Feb. 23, while you were in Phoenix. What was that like?

Gabriela Genova: There were so many young people who attended one of the biggest, national immigration congresses that weekend! The UWD Congress had so many workshops that were beneficial to young people in the immigration movement but also, older people like myself. This year, DREAMers Moms USA was invited to attend and because DREAMers Moms Orlando the group that I am with, is a part of that, I was able to attend. There were many presentations and workshops available for all of us to attend and the ones I participated in were, “Can You Hear Me Now? Fundraising is Organizing!” “1:1's: Often Talked About, Rarely Ever Done – Why You Need That QT,” “Tapping Into Legal Networks: How To Build Relationships With Attorneys and Legal Representatives” and a workshop on “Know Your Rights & Defend Your Family.” The workshops were very well organized and I learned so much to bring back to my group.

Fight Back!: What do you think is necessary to stop the deportations? And what thoughts did those who attended the UWD Congress have on stopping the deportations?

Gabriela Genova: DREAMers Moms Orlando as well as so many of those who attended the UWD Congress agree on one thing: we must continue calling out President Barack Obama for not stopping the deportations. I know as well as everyone knows, that President Obama has the power to stop the deportations. I personally think we should keep pressuring Republican Speaker John Boehner to keep having him pinned against the wall. If we keep doing that with all of those in office, we have a lot of power to move things around. What I have noticed is that groups closer to the Mexico-U.S. border center all of their movements and actions on the border and stopping the deportations. Groups and organizations further away like ours in the state of Florida, organize around pushing for broader wins for immigrants, like driver's licenses.

Fight Back!: What did the hunger strikers have to say about the movements for driver's licenses?

Gabriela Genova: The strikers were surprised when I told them that in Florida we are very much persecuted for driving without a driver's license. In Arizona, I traveled in vehicles with many different undocumented immigrants and so many of them seemed to not even remember they did not have a license. When I drive in Florida, I am terrified; always looking back at my mirror and making sure I do not break a single rule of the road. In Florida, I was pulled over three times and only one of the times was it for going five miles over the speed limit. The police in the state of Florida uses technology that flags your license plate for the authorities so that they know where you have your vehicle registered and they know exactly who to look for when you are on the road. There is a recent push to have this system available in the entire country and that is very bad news. We all know that the majority of the reason undocumented people are deported is due to driving without a valid driver's license. Perhaps those driving me around in Arizona wanted me to feel comfortable, because we know it is always a danger to drive without a valid driver's license and to be undocumented.

Fight Back! note: Since Gabriela Genova's return to Florida, there were threats and arrests of the hunger strikers and those joining them. Authorities attempted to take down their canopies and arrest them all. Some of the strikes like Gabriela Genova's friend, Alejandra Sanchez were hospitalized for malnutrition and dehydration. The hunger strike is now over, ending on March 3. One family member, Arturo Martinez, the son of hunger striker Martha Espinoza, was released after 13 months in detention. The movement is celebrating this victory and calling for a stop to deportations.

#OrlandoFL #UnitedWeDream #DREAMERS #DREAMersMoms

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

Kansas City, MO – 600 students and youth attended the United We Dream National Congress here, the weekend of Nov. 30. These young leaders gathered to decide the direction that the immigrant youth movement will take in the wake of the 2012 U.S. elections. United We Dream (UND) is the largest national network of immigrant youth organizations, with 47 affiliates and thousands of members across the country.

The general consensus was loud and clear – now is the time to fight for a total overhaul of the U.S. immigration system.

Undocumented youth spoke passionately about the separation of their families as a result of deportation, the denial of a college education because they cannot receive in-state tuition or financial aid, the super-exploitation their parents face as undocumented workers, and the constant fear of being arrested for driving without a license or of running into a Border Patrol checkpoint.

On Dec. 2, in a truly democratic process, the affiliates of UWD unanimously passed a six-point platform that the immigrant youth movement is going to fight for in the upcoming year. The points included: the right to travel freely – both nationally and to visit family abroad; an end to enforcement programs like Secure Communities and e-verify; the improvement of working conditions for undocumented workers; and access to higher education through in-state tuition and financial aid programs.

The direction for the movement is clear. The immigrant youth are no longer willing to accept stalling and delays by politicians and their corporate backers. It is obvious that the immigrant youth movement will not accept the narrow, short-term solutions offered by the Democrats and Republicans to ‘solve’ the immigration issue. The solution is to be found in the struggle for a completely revamped immigration system. There has to be a system focused on removing the shackles that weigh down more than 11 million immigrants as well as a solution for full equality, in which allows people to contribute to society. Perhaps best summed up in the words of an undocumented Congress participant, “We will not only fight for our rights as students, but for the rights of our entire community.”

The 600 delegates returned to their home communities with this platform in mind and soon will begin organizing around these goals. Support your local DREAMers in their fight for a just immigration system, for legalization, and for full equality.

#KansasCityMO #AntiRacism #immigrantRights #undocumented #DreamDefenders #UnitedWeDream