A national conference for immigrant & refugee rights

January 18-20, 2008 || Hyatt Regency || Houston, Texas

As federal immigration reform has reached an impasse, government, police and many other forces have been stepping up attacks on immigrants and refugees at the local, regional and state levels. ICE raids continue sweeping up thousands, and the new Social Security no-match rules were barely stopped from going into effect temporarily.

At the same time, community organizations led by the immigrant and refugee community have been pushing forward creative initiatives to protect the most vulnerable members of our communities and link with other communities and movements demanding justice & dignity.

Come to Houston in January 2008 to:

• Share stories, strategies and tactics for innovative initiatives built from the grassroots!
• Share and learn new techniques in community organizing, media & communications, popular education and more!
• Learn about exciting work happening at the intersection of immigrant and refugee rights, gender, sexual orientation, and across many different racial and ethnic communities
• Learn about and share with the many communities and nationalities that make up the immigrant and refugee rights movement!
• Work with the international migrants rights movements, exposing "free" trade policies' harmful impacts causing forced migration worldwide
• Help build a shared immigrant rights platform for this critical election year and together lift our voices to reframe thenational debate towards justice, dignity and human rights.

Tentative Workshop, Tracks & Topics Include:

• Lifting Immigrant Voices in the 2008 Elections
• Racism and Immigration: Bridging Communities in the Post-Katrina Era
• Pushing Back the Miltiarization of border & interior immigration control
• Globalization and Migration: Addressing "Root Causes"
• Promoting the Human Rights of Im/Migrants
• Immigration, Labor and Workers Rights
• Immigration Policy and Legislation
• Popular Education for Transformative Community Organizing
• Community Organizing
• Media & Communications Skills

Limited travel scholarships available.

For more information email: conference08@nnirr.org , visit www.nnirr.org or call 510-465-1984 x 303

A national conference for immigrant & refugee rights

January 18-20, 2008 || Hyatt Regency || Houston, Texas

As federal immigration reform has reached an impasse, government, police and many other forces have been stepping up attacks on immigrants and refugees at the local, regional and state levels. ICE raids continue sweeping up thousands, and the new Social Security no-match rules were barely stopped from going into effect temporarily.

At the same time, community organizations led by the immigrant and refugee community have been pushing forward creative initiatives to protect the most vulnerable members of our communities and link with other communities and movements demanding justice & dignity.

Come to Houston in January 2008 to:

• Share stories, strategies and tactics for innovative initiatives built from the grassroots!
• Share and learn new techniques in community organizing, media & communications, popular education and more!
• Learn about exciting work happening at the intersection of immigrant and refugee rights, gender, sexual orientation, and across many different racial and ethnic communities
• Learn about and share with the many communities and nationalities that make up the immigrant and refugee rights movement!
• Work with the international migrants rights movements, exposing "free" trade policies' harmful impacts causing forced migration worldwide
• Help build a shared immigrant rights platform for this critical election year and together lift our voices to reframe thenational debate towards justice, dignity and human rights.

Tentative Workshop, Tracks & Topics Include:

• Lifting Immigrant Voices in the 2008 Elections
• Racism and Immigration: Bridging Communities in the Post-Katrina Era
• Pushing Back the Miltiarization of border & interior immigration control
• Globalization and Migration: Addressing "Root Causes"
• Promoting the Human Rights of Im/Migrants
• Immigration, Labor and Workers Rights
• Immigration Policy and Legislation
• Popular Education for Transformative Community Organizing
• Community Organizing
• Media & Communications Skills

Limited travel scholarships available.

For more information email: conference08@nnirr.org , visit www.nnirr.org or call 510-465-1984 x 303

Who Killed the Immigration Bill, and Who Wants it to Come Back?
By David Bacon
Oakland, CA 6/9/07

Within hours of the Senate vote to kill its comprehensive immigration
reform bill, the lobbyist for software giant Oracle Corp. had already
declared that Silicon Valley's proposal for more guest workers was
still alive. "We don't think it's dead," Robert Hoffman told the San
Francisco Chronicle. Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer threatened to
move more high tech jobs out of the country if electronics
corporations didn't get more contract migrant labor. Other corporate
spokespeople also announced they were looking for ways to revive the
Senate bill in which they'd invested so much political capital.

Immigrant communities and union activists had been in the streets for
months, trying to stop the same bill. In San Francisco alone, seven
were arrested in the office of Senator Diane Feinstein, during the
recess that preceded the June 7 vote. Dozens more debated the
senator in front of her home the morning after the arrests. Around
the country, similar demonstrations did what they could to kill the
bill. The National Day Labor Organizing Network called it a "cynical
and mean-spirited effort of those Senators that seek to poison the
immigration reform debate yet again," and warned, "we are fearful
that an insufficient Senate bill cannot be adequately repaired in the
House of Representatives or in a conference session."

It was no surprise that many greeted the (perhaps temporary) death of
comprehensive immigration reform as a necessary move to protect
immigrants themselves. These groups saw in the bill a threat of more
contract labor programs, more enforcement and raids, greater
militarization of the border and erosion of basic due process rights.
Filipinos for Affirmative Action, voicing a criticism common in Asian
American and Latino communities, said the bill "moved away from
permanent, family-based immigration toward a temporary employment
system."

As debate in the Senate proceeded, even the bill's promise of
legalization for the nation's 12 million undocumented residents
proved so restrictive that only a small percentage eventually would
have qualified. Migrants without status would have had to place
their families in jeopardy just to apply.

After the vote in the Senate defeating cloture, killing the bill at
least for the moment, John Sweeney, head of the AFL-CIO, declared it
"plagued by anti-family, anti-worker provisions," and called it "
doomed at the onset. The bill abandoned long-standing U.S. policy
favoring the reunification of families and failed to protect workers'
most basic rights."

Despite the fact that the bill was brokered by the Bush
administration, many of its proponents were not Republicans, but
liberal Democrats, most prominently Senator Edward Kennedy.
Supporting it was a network of lobbyists referred to in the press as
"immigration advocates," large employers, and conservative think
tanks. For two years this alliance advocated a strategy of trading
legalization of undocumented immigrants for increased immigration
enforcement and guest worker programs. The National Immigration
Forum and the DC umbrella group it initiated, the Coalition for
Comprehensive Immigration Reform, were key players in this strategy.
Behind them was the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, which
brought together over 40 of the largest corporate trade and
manufacturing associations in the country, under the aegis of the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce. EWIC head John Gay, also head of the
National Restaurant Association, chairs the NIF board.

These Washington groups supported all the compromise bills embodying
the legalization/enforcement/guest worker tradeoff, beginning with
the original Kennedy/McCain bill in 2005. The same argument was used
to justify them all: "It's not possible to get legalization without
including more enforcement and guest worker programs." While the
groups occasionally disagreed with individual provisions of the
proposals that followed, they not only agreed with the basic
structure and architecture of these bills, but became their ardent
advocates in meetings around the country.

As the proposals moved through negotiations with the administration
and Congressional Republicans, legalization schemes became more
restrictive, enforcement provisions more ferocious, and contract
labor schemes more extensive. Yet the recently defeated Senate
compromise was greeted as a "good starting point." Even at the end,
the DC groups called on immigrant communities to urge defeat of "bad"
amendments to it, while continuing to urge Senators to support the
comprehensive immigration reform, or tradeoff, framework.

While Congress considered this series of proposals, the Bush
administration embarked on a series of highly publicized immigration
raids and workplace firings, to put pressure on immigrant communities
and unions to accept its reform program. The bills themselves called
for giving the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, part of
the Department of Homeland Security, more enforcement authority to
conduct these raids. The administration, for instance, proposed that
employers be required to fire any worker whose Social Security number
didn't match the agency's database. Although Bush never actually
issued this regulation, and the bills obviously hadn't passed, ICE
and employers began using it as the basis for enforcement actions.

Workers at the Woodfin Suites in Emeryville, California, were fired
after they tried to enforce the city's living wage ordinance. At the
Smithfield pork plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina, hundreds were
fired, and many then deported, during the hardest-fought union
organizing drive in years. Similar raids and firings swept the
country, as the administration set ICE loose on immigrant
communities, implementing the very language in the comprehensive
reform bills. Beltway lobbying groups often expressed alarm over the
raids, but didn't withdraw their support for bills that would have
made such raids more widespread.

After coordinated raids at Swift meatpacking plants in November, in
which over a thousand workers were picked up for deportation,
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told reporters the
enforcement actions would show Congress the need for "stronger border
security, effective interior enforcement and a temporary-worker
program.'' Bush wants, he said, "a program that would allow
businesses that need foreign workers, because they can't otherwise
satisfy their labor needs, to be able to get those workers in a
regulated program." Within weeks of Chertoff's statement, the
Southern Poverty Law Center issued a report, "Close to Slavery,"
which provided exhaustive documentation that current guest worker
programs, like those the administration proposed, systematically
violated workers' rights. Abuse in H-2 programs was so extensive,
and government enforcement of existing labor protections so
completely absent, that SPLC called them "fundamentally flawed."

The SPLC and other exposes gave guest worker programs such a bad
reputation that DC-based groups took pains to disassociate themselves
from the term. The bills they supported would "break the mold," they
claimed, by creating contract labor programs that wouldn't exploit
workers. They invented new terms: "essential worker" or "new
worker" plans. Behind the semantic fog, however, the bills preserved
the two crucial characteristics of all employment-based guest worker
schemes: new migrants could only come if recruited by an employer or
labor contractor, and people had to remain employed to stay.
Migrants losing a job and unable to find another within a short time
would be deported.

To justify contract labor programs, the DC coalition asserted
constantly that U.S. corporations face dire labor shortages. The
Bureau of Labor Statistics, however, estimates the May, 2007
unemployment rate at 4.5%, and says over 7 million workers were
unemployed in 2006. Most unions believe these are serious
undercounts. Unemployment in African American and Chicano
communities is much higher, over double digits even during economic
booms.

Yet instead of raising wage and benefits to attract workers, or
paying more taxes to improve education and training in working class
communities, employers held that only huge guest worker programs
could meet their labor needs. In an joint oped piece for
Politico.com, Thomas Donahue, CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,
and Andy Stern, President of the Service Employees International
Union (one of two unions that supported the tradeoff bills) stated
that "we need legislation that will create a carefully monitored
essential worker program," and called it "a system that provides U.S.
businesses with the workers it needs."

Meanwhile, legalization proposals in the same tradeoff bills were
presented as the payoff for immigrant communities. Yet many of the
legalization schemes threatened to disqualify immigrants guilty of
document fraud. ICE now says this includes anyone who's given a
false SS number to get a job, something almost all undocumented
workers have done. Other proposals would have imposed employment
requirements, imposed high fines difficult for most working families
to pay, and required people to take an undetermined amount of time
off work to return to their home countries to apply for readmittance,
with no guarantee they could pass a host of bureaucratic checks.
Most proposals would have had people wait at least a decade before
they could get a green card for permanent legal residence (not
citizenship). Legalization programs wouldn't even take effect until
the U.S. gained "operational control" of the border, leaving the door
open for years of increased enforcement with no change at all in the
status of the undocumented.

Many organizations outside DC did not support this approach to
immigration reform. Instead they called for a positive agenda
focusing on human and workplace rights, legal status and equality.
They proposed reforms that didn't criminalize migration, work or the
border itself, and that instead protected families and communities.
The National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights urged that "we
work for a different "starting point" for immigration reform that
protects the rights of all immigrant families, workers and
communities."

The beltway lobbying strategy started by asking what employers and a
Republican administration would be willing to accept. Groups like
NDLON, however, proposed building a popular movement to change the
political terrain in Washington, like the civil rights movement of
the 1960s. Responding to lobbyists who called the Senate bill the
only chance to reform immigration law for years, NDLON said "We know
the struggle for justice and immigration reform requires a long view
of history, and we will not be pressured into accepting an
insufficient compromise simply for sake of political expediency. We
owe it to this and future generations to pass a bill that we can all
be proud of."

"The best way to guarantee the rights and wages of all workers in
this country," added the AFL-CIO's John Sweeney, "is to give every
immigrant the opportunity to become a citizen, with all the rights
and duties that entails. At the same time, Congress must revise our
immigration system so that in the face of labor shortages, future
foreign workers may enter this country not as dispensable units of
production but as permanent residents with the same rights and
protections as all other U.S. workers."

Basic differences have divided the immigrant rights and labor
movements, not just over tactics and strategy, but also over goals.
Should immigrant rights groups and unions support increased
enforcement? Should they allow employers to recruit hundreds of
thousands of workers a year, on visas which condition their right to
stay in the US on continued employment? Should temporary or contract
labor programs be the condition under which the undocumented are
allowed to stay?

This division, between Washington-based organizations, and grassroots
coalitions outside the beltway, has existed for over a decade. In
1996 many community-based coalitions around the country withdrew from
the National Immigration Forum when it insisted it was not possible
to save the rights of undocumented immigrants in the Clinton-backed
immigration bill. The DC-based strategy tacitly called for saving
the rights of legal immigrants by telling Congress that while the
country needed to do something about illegal immigration, legal
residents shouldn't be punished in the same bill. The strategy
failed, and according to Filipinos for Affirmative Action, "the
Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act
undermined the basic rights of all immigrants, denied their right to
due process, and expanded the reasons for detention and deportation."
The starting point for immigration reform should be instead an
agreement that "all immigrants have a right to be treated equally,
with full legal, employment, human and civil rights."

Today's disagreements are similar. They are in part over strategy
and tactics, but also raise a deeper issue: Should U.S. immigration
policy become a labor supply system for corporations, or should it
support families and communities? In the mainstream press, this
question gets little coverage because the framework proposed in
Congress so heavily sets the media agenda. Anger over exclusion from
the debate provoked the Mexican American Political Association to
declare that "We are totally opposed to the off-handed declarations
made by compromising individual Latino television commentators or
organizations that advocate - NOTHING IS WORSE [than failure to pass
an immigration bill]. In fact, NOTHING WILL BE WORSE [than the
proposed Senate legislation] in terms of the millions of individuals
and families who will be criminalized in perpetuity."

Moving from an effort to defeat anti-immigrant legislation to an
agenda that can win more progressive reforms requires an open debate
over those disagreements. As Silicon Valley and other employer
groups move to bring the Senate bill back, that discussion is more
urgent than ever.

LGBT Immigrants: Pride and Prejudice

They're here, they're queer - and neither their gay or immigrant communities
are waiting with open arms.

By Ronald Pineda

Nicki Koethner still remembers the first time she rode a bus in the U.S.:
she was shocked and dismayed that public transit still enforced racial
segregation.

The sign overhead, Koethner recalls vividly, read: Step Behind White.
"I thought, is [racism] still that bad here? And then I saw the safety line
on the floor."

Koethner now laughs at her gaffe. But the incident stands out in her mind as
an example of the disorientation she felt as a newly-arrived immigrant from
Germany--nineteen, bisexual, a work visa from her au pair program in hand.
That was seventeen years ago.

"My struggles have shifted throughout the years," says Koethner, who
eventually became a permanent resident, launched a career as a family
therapist, and settled in the East Bay with a woman. Along the way she's
faced some of the issues that come up at some point for all immigrants:
feeling torn between countries, losing the close support of her family, and
feeling a lack of cultural validation. Plus, being bi in a straight world
made her feel even more alien. Koethner says, "Being part of the LGBT
community is similar to being an immigrant...You grow up with certain values
that orient you on how things might be like when you are older. But then
[both as a LGBT and an immigrant] you find yourself in a foreign country
where there is a different language and other customs."

Koethner is quick to point out, though, that her experience as an immigrant
is somewhat unique. "My struggle is different from immigrants who have come
here for economic reasons, or those who came for political reasons. I'm here
on my own volition and I have never been persecuted in my home country."

Home Is Where the Heart Is

Marta Donayre, however, has been. When she emigrated from Brazil in 1995 on
a student visa, Donayre was twenty-six years old and married to a man.
Shortly after they arrived here, however, they separated. After exploring
her sexuality, she came out as lesbian--and realized that she couldn't go
back to Brazil.

"Brazil can be very homophobic," Donayre says. "Things are changing, but
it's still very dangerous for LGBT people." Donayre tells the story, for
example, of the funeral in Sao Paolo of one of her relatives. Due to
international coverage given at the time to San Francisco's same-sex
marriages--one of which was Donayre's to her partner, Leslie Bulbuck--many
of her family members had seen her photograph reprinted in one of Brazil's
largest newspapers.

"Somebody said to my mom, 'There were two tragedies in the family this
week,'" Donayre says. "One tragedy was the relative dying, and the other
tragedy was me getting married in San Francisco."

Donayre's status in her adopted country was tenuous as well. A Silicon
Valley dot-com had hired Donayre after graduation and converted her student
visa to a working visa so she could remain here legally. It was also during
this period when Donayre met Bulbuk, an American citizen.

When Donayre's company laid her off in 2001, she learned Bulbuk could not
sponsor her, even though straight couples can easily do so. Faced with few
choices--moving to Canada being one of them--Donayre and Bulbuk decided to
stay put in the Bay Area and seek help.

The Bay Area has long been known as a popular destination for both LGBTs and
immigrants, so Donayre assumed she would easily find the help she needed.
According to a recent report by UCLA's Williams Institute, San Francisco
ranks first in the nation for residents who identify as LGBT. California
also ranks first in the nation in its number of foreign-born residents,
outnumbering second-ranked New York by a margin of over two to one. Donayre
didn't know that she was in for a shock.

"We contacted all of the large LGBT groups in the country and said, 'We want
to talk about this. We want to be your poster children,'" she says. "The
answer we got was 'Thank you, but no thank you.' I'm not shy to say we get
more support from immigrant rights organizations than from LGBT
organizations."

The Crack Between Two Phobias

Diana Pei Wu, policy director for Oakland-based National Network for
Immigrant and Refugee Rights, cautions that many immigrant rights
organizations still shy away from focusing on LGBT immigrant issues; it's
just that hers is not one of them. During last month's pro-immigration
rallies, the NNIRR demanded an end to "LGBT people whose families are kept
apart and harassed and oppressed because of their sexual orientation and
gender identities."

Wu says it's unfortunate when immigrant rights organizations choose not to
incorporate LGBT issues into the larger immigration debate, because those
that do often get positive, if not transformative results. She adds that a
growing number of LGBT organizations like the Audre Lorde Project and Queers
for Economic Justice, both based in New York City, now focus on LGBT
immigrant rights.

One of the NNIRR's top concerns is that little has been done to improve
state and federal policy. Of the hundreds of bills inspired by the recent
push for immigration reform, Wu says, "almost none of them address anything
about the reunification of queer families." (At press time, however, a bill
called the Uniting American Families Act was introduced in Congress. If
passed, it would allow Americans in same-sex, bi-national relationships to
sponsor their partners for legal residency in the United States.)

"Just like the immigrant rights community can be homophobic," adds Donayre,
"the LGBT community can be very xenophobic."

In the meantime, because Donayre and Bulbuk felt they weren't well-received
by LGBT organizations, they created the LGBT immigrant rights group called
Love Sees No Borders. While the organization has raised up their issue's
profile a notch, it ultimately didn't provide Donayre her green card;
requesting and being awarded political asylum did. Now she's a permanent
exile; due to Homeland Security laws pertaining to her green card, she is
forbidden from ever returning to Brazil without prior government approval.

Liberty and the Pursuit of a Real Estate License

Like others in his immediate family, Nguru Karugu came to the U.S. to
complete his education and then return home to Kenya. More than twenty-five
years later, most of them spent here, he is finally applying for American
citizenship. "I travel quite a bit," says the activist and public health
consultant, "and I encounter a bit of a hassle at the airport" each time he
returns. Currently, in fact, Karugu is back in his native country working
with state and non-governmental organizations that serve sex workers, men
who have sex with men, and substance abusers.

Aside from the convenience an American passport would provide him, Karugu
has come to respect American civil liberties, which too often are taken for
granted. "I believe the freedom that this country provides for one to
self-actualize cannot be overstated," he says. "I have started to work in
Kenya for a year where there is the beginning of an LGBT movement. After
being in the U.S. for over twenty years, and being part of various social
justice movements, the lack of space for my Kenyan brothers and sisters to
organize and be together is very glaring."

Nonetheless, in his new home, being LGBT and an immigrant continues to be a
challenge for Karugu. "I could go to gay spaces, but my immigrant reality
was not present," Karugu says. "In my African immigrant communities, my gay
reality was not recognized or accepted." Nor were the two movements he was
drawn to--gay and immigrant--responsive to each other's issues. Like
Donayre, he cites the "lack of recognition of the issues that impact LGBT
immigrants within the larger LGBT communities."

Frustrated by his lack of options, Karugu co-founded Uhuru Wazobia in 1994.
The name translates to "Come Freedom" and is culled from a number of African
languages. Karugu says the group provides a social network for people from
continental Africa who self-identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender
or straight. "The group has allowed us all to explore even further the
reality of being African immigrants who are also sexual minorities," Karugu
says. "It has been a life-saving process...It's allowed me to be all of me
all of the time."

If Karugu was drawn to the U.S. for its liberal ideals, Horacio Hernandez's
family came here for something more practical: the promise of a living wage.
Hernandez was only three, too young to remember many details of his mother's
flight from Tijuana, Mexico, to San Francisco, his sister and him in tow.
What he does remember is learning years later that the passports they used
were fake.

For years, Hernandez lived in the Bay Area illegally. His mother kept their
status a secret as she searched for better economic opportunities in their
new home. Fortunately, the family qualified to take advantage of the
Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which enabled them to legalize
their status. Hernandez, who'd realized by then he was gay, became a citizen
when he was in college.

Although he supports LGBT and immigrant rights, Hernandez isn't particularly
involved in politics. It's not important, he says, for him to seek out
spaces where he can be LGBT and immigrant at the same time. As he puts it,
"I don't think I've let it become an issue for me...I've never had those two
collide, where me being gay and me being an immigrant is making life
unbearable for me."

Perhaps that's because Hernandez didn't immigrate voluntarily, as an adult,
for the sake of preference. Instead, he was literally smuggled over the
border by a mother fleeing poverty. Self-fulfillment as a gay Mexican
American just wasn't--couldn't be--his priority. So it's no surprise that
when Hernandez talks about being an immigrant, the conversation veers toward
money and family. He's getting his broker's license and says he's likely
move to San Diego sometime in the near future to be closer to his mother,
who decided to move back to Mexico to care for a close relative.

"My life is hard enough because I'm a realtor who's thirty-one, who's gay,
who didn't know anyone when I came here as an immigrant," Hernandez says. "I
have to work so much...[Being LGBT and an immigrant] takes a back seat to my
survival."

# # #

Workshops at the 2007 Southeast Regional Immigrant and Refugee Rights Training Institute

June 1 - 3, 2007 :: Chapel Hill, NC


Session 1 ::: Friday, June 1, 2007 ::: PM :: (Skills) Building with Each Other

Workshop 1-A Education for Liberation: Popular Education

Workshop 1-B Facilitation Styles: "So that two white ladies don't end up dominating your meetings"

Workshop 1-C Know Your Rights and Break the ICE

Workshop 1-D Migration Stories in a Global & Historical Context :: Immigration Timelines

Workshop 1-E Power Tools for Sharing Power: Interpretation and Translation in Social Justice Movements


Session 2 ::: Sat, June 2, 2007 :: AM :: Framework Building

Workshop 2-A Building Immigrant & Refugee Women's Leadership

Workshop 2-B Migrant Rights are Human Rights

Workshop 2-C Globalization, Migration & Migrant Rights

Workshop 2-D Immigrant Rights and LGBTQ Rights


Session 3 ::: Sat, June 2, 2007 :: PM :: Skills for Movement in the Moment

Workshop 3-A Documenting Human Rights Abuses and the HURICANE tool

Workshop 3-B Coalition & Alliance Building

Workshop 3-C Self-Care, Self-Reflection, and Healing for Sustainability in Social Justice Movements

Workshop 3-D Grassroots Approaches to Legislative Advocacy

Invitation to the Night of a 1,000 Conversations / Invitacion a la Noche de las
1,000 Conversaciones

Dear NNIRR Members, Partners, Allies & Supporters of the Liberty & Justice
for All campaign,

First, we want to thank the many individuals and organizations who have for endorsed the principles of the Liberty & Justice for All Campaign. Your pledge is helping strengthen and build the movement with members of Liberty & Justice for All to restore due process rights to all immigrants.

Now, we are organizing a very special action and invite you to join us.

On Thursday, April 5, 2007 thousands of people all across the country will come
together in living rooms, basements, back yards, community centers, schools, and
places of worship to talk, dialogue and put our heads together to imagine a more
just and fair society, where basic rights are respected. Will you join us work towards
that goal?

The Night of 1,000 Conversations will build our grassroots momentum and make a splash in the public?s awareness, as well as create the political pressure for lawmakers in Congress to act. We?ve decided to stretch ourselves and reach for the stars with a goal of organizing 1,000 events across the country on Thursday, April 5, 2007. So far we have pledges for about 400 conversations.

Will you join us and help us reach our goal of 1,000?

If you host a conversation, we?ll give you the tools and training you need to succeed.

From the Campaign's website
http://www.rightsworkinggroup.org/?q=ConversationNight

you can find a one-pager to explain the action, resources to kick off the conversation and a way to register yourself and your event. Soon you'll find a sample script, common questions and answers, and more resources.

If you plan to host, you can join one of our Host Orientation sessions listed below.
All of these conference calls will take place by dialing 877-888-7003 and using
code: 120011

Orientation for Hosts for the Night of 1,000 Conversations:
* Friday, March 16 at 4pm Eastern, 1pm Pacific
* Tuesday, March 20 at 9pm Eastern, 6pm Pacific
* Thursday, March 29 at 8pm Eastern, 5pm Pacific
* Friday, March 30 at 1pm Eastern, 10am Pacific

U.S. people need to know about the mean-spirited policies that do nothing to solve
the overall immigration issue so that we can put an end to them. Because when we let the government violate the Constitution and deny due process for some, all of our freedoms are at risk.

Join us today!

On behalf of the NNIRR,

Arnoldo Garcia
National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
Red Nacional Pro Derechos Inmigrantes y Refugiados
310 8th Street STE 303
Oakland, CA 94607
Tel (510) 465-1984 ext 305
Fax (510) 465-1885
Email: agarcia@nnirr.org
www.nnirr.org
www.migrantdiaries.blogspot.com

* from our friends at TIRRC's website *

Mayor Bill Purcell Vetoes English-Only Bill
—Watered-Down Bill Would Be Too Costly, and Bad Policy for Nashville—
—Please Contact Mayor Purcell to Thank Him for His Leadership —

Nashville — The Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition expresses its gratitude to Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell for his courageous leadership, making the decision to veto the unnecessary and divisive English-only bill. This is only the third veto Mayor Purcell has exercised in his 8 years in office.

In his written and verbal statements, the Mayor said, "If this ordinance becomes law, Nashville will be a less safe, less friendly, and less successful city. As mayor, I cannot allow that to happen." He went on to clarify that "This ordinance does not reflect who we are in Nashville...We are a welcoming, inclusive place with friendly people."

The English-only measure has seen growing opposition from community leaders and NashvilleForAll, a broad-based community coalition that formed around this issue and seeks to build and maintain a City that Works For Everyone. The mayor made the veto announcement flanked by representatives from Metro schools, the Nashville Chamber of Commerce, the Catholic Bishop of Nashville, the Metro Human Relations Commission, labor leaders, Metro police, presidents of local businesses and numerous community leaders.

Although the bill was amended in September to make broad exceptions for health, safety, and federal law, the Metro legal department today issued a critical Legal Opinion: "It is the opinion of the Department of Law that a court is likely to find that [the English-only ordinance] violates both the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Tennessee." Specifically, the bill violates "the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution and the Tennessee Constitution due to its vagueness, the right under both Constitutions to petition the government for the redress of grievances, and the Free Speech provisions of both the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Tennessee." The mayor remarked that defending this ordinance against likely lawsuits would cost "hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars, for no good reason."

Please take the time to thank Mayor Purcell for standing up for a better and more inclusive Nashville:

mayor@nashville.gov
phone—615-862-6000
fax—615-862-6040

To read recent news stories and editorials about Nashville's defeated English-only bill, please click here.
To read a summary of the Metro Council's action on February 6th, please click here.

For questions or comments, please contact Stephen Fotopulos at stephen@tnimmigrant.org.

Detiene Inmigración de EU a 30 migrantes
Por: Notimex

Miercoles 31 de Enero de 2007 | Hora de publicación: 12:12
Agentes de la Oficina de Inmigración y Aduanas de Estados Unidos detuvieron hoy a unos 30 inmigrantes durante una redada en una planta de reciclaje de desperdicios en Humble, un suburbio al norte de Houston.

Las televisoras KTRK y KHOU de Houston indicaron que la redada se llevó a cabo en las instalaciones de la compañía "Republic Waste Company" entre las 06:00 y las 08:00 horas locales de este miércoles y que la nacionalidad de los detenidos aún no se informa.

La vocera de la Oficina de Inmigración y Aduanas (ICE, por sus siglas en inglés) en Houston, Luisa Deason, confirmó a Notimex que agentes de esa dependencia se encontraban en el lugar en una acción de aplicación de la ley, pero declinó ofrecer más detalles.

Joe Rozema, un trabajador de la planta, informó a la estación de televisión KTRK que la redada inició a las 06:00 horas locales (12:00 GMT) cuando decenas de agentes llegaron al lugar y tres helicópteros comenzaron a sobrevolar la planta.

"Fue algo caótico esta mañana", afirmó Rozema tras detallar que los agentes pidieron a los trabajadores concentrarse en un área de la planta donde fueron cuestionados uno a uno para determinar su estatus migratorio.

"Yo les mostré mi licencia de conducir y mi tarjeta del Seguro Social", dijo.

Los agentes le dieron un brazalete de plástico azul para que lo portara y aquellos que aún tenían que demostrar su estatus migratorio recibieron uno de color amarillo.

Rozema estimó que entre 30 y 40 de sus compañeros de trabajo fueron detenidos y conducidos en dos autobuses a un centro de detención migratoria en Houston.

Precisó que en la planta laboran unas 150 personas y dijo que la compañía ya había tendido problemas por asuntos migratorios en el pasado.

"Tuvimos un problema aquí alrededor de la Navidad del año pasado (2005) y luego de eso recibimos una nueva administración", explicó.

Reporteros en el lugar no fueron autorizados a ingresar a la planta ni verificar el número de detenidos en el sitio.

January 31, 2007
Reacciones contra redada de ICE en Houston

Grupos pro inmigrantes reaccionaron hoy a las redadas en lugares de trabajo contra inmigrantes indocumentados, que volvieron hoy a Houston con la operación de Servicio de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas (ICE por sus siglas en inglés) en la compañía de recolección y reciclaje de basura Republic Services Inc.

María Jiménez, activista comunitaria que trabaja con el Centro de Recursos para Centroamericanos (CRECEN), dijo hoy que habían programado para el sábado a las 2 p.m. una manifestación de protesta frente a las oficinas de ICE en Houston, en 5220 Greens Road , al norte de la ciudad.

Según trabajadores de la planta, ubicada en Humble, al norte de Houston, al menos 40 personas fueron detenidas por agentes federales, reportó hoy el Houston Chronicle.

La última redada de esta magnitud en Houston fue en abril del 2006 cuando 25 personas fueron arrestadas en la compañía internacional, con sede en Houston IFCO Systems Northamerica. Cientos de personas más fueron arrestadas durante esa operación en un total de 9 estados.

Después de esa operación la comunidad inmigrante de Houston sintió miedo, según dijeron varios trabajadores entonces a La Voz. El miedo creó rumores infundados de controles de inmigración en calles y carreteras, aunque no impidieron que días después saliesen en marchas contra una reforma inmigratoria basada en medidas de seguridad y sin un camino a la ciudadanía para los indocumentados.

En diciembre del 2006, ICE arrestó a 1,250 personas en 6 estados, incluido Texas, en una redada en la procesadora de carne Swift & Co.

Jiménez dijo también que CRECEN, junto con otras asociaciones pro inmigrantes del país, ha comenzado una campaña para que paren las redadas en lugares de trabajo con una carta al presidente George W. Bush pidiéndole una moratoria hasta que sea aprobada una reforma inmigratoria.

Según Jiménez si el gobierno está trabajando en una reforma no debería estar a la vez haciendo cumplir un sistema inmigratorio que, según CRECEN y otras organizaciones, no funciona.

Luisa Deason, portavoz de ICE, dijo hoy al Houston Chronicle que la operación era una acción de cumplimiento de la ley.

This is one of our partner organizations with whom we are closely allied.

* * * * *

BAY AREA IMMIGRANT RIGHTS COALITION

310 EIGHTH STREET, SUITE 303 • OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA 94607
PHONE: 510-839-7598 • FAX: 510-465-1885 • WWW.IMMIGRANTRIGHTS.ORG


"ICE" COLD HEARTED RAIDS WITH NO "SWIFT" SOLUTIONS

Employer sanctions, the policy of using employers as immigration agents, has failed since its inception in 1986 to stop undocumented immigration flows. This policy of criminalizing work only wreaks havoc on workers, families, communities, and businesses. This was clearly demonstrated yet again in the Swift raids last week where Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested 1,282 immigrant workers.

Employers do not make good immigration agents. However, many employers have found advantages in being immigration agents as it makes it easier for them to exploit immigrant workers, break organizing drives, and lower wages and workplace conditions.

This is how the Woodfin Hotel Suites in Emeryville is using employer sanctions. After dozens of their immigrant employees came together to enforce a local living wage law – Measure C - the Woodfin decided it was time for a social security number check. Now, most of these workers face termination.

In its desire to seem like something is being done about the immigration situation, the Bush administration has allowed ICE to begin conducting large scale workplace raids. Yet, the consequences of these raids are cruel and mean-spirited. Adding insult to injury, ICE conducted the raids on what is a religious holiday for the Latino immigrant community and two weeks before Christmas.

The massive disruption caused to families two weeks before the holidays by the Swift and Company raids is exemplified in Grand Island, Nebraska. The afternoon of the raid, teachers spent hours looking for safe temporary placement for the US-born children of parents who were in federal custody. Some teachers took children home with them until further notice. In Grand Island alone, some 1,100 children were impacted.

National polls show US voters support allowing hard-working immigrants to integrate into our society and remain with their families and communities. A national exit poll conducted on Election Day by the National Election Poll found that 6 out of every 10 US voters believe undocumented immigrants currently working in the United States should have the chance to legalize.

The Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition (BAIRC) has been urging federal elected officials to create and support legislation that will eliminate employer sanctions, legalize the undocumented, eliminate the backlog and raise the cap on family visas so millions of families who have been separated for years can be reunited, and ensure the human rights of all immigrants are respected. Short-sighted and inhumane policies such as employer sanctions will get us no where.

###
BAIRC is a regional coalition made up of 40 immigrant rights organizations advocating for fair policies and better living conditions for immigrant communities.