Build Back Better without leaving anyone behind.

Action #1: Advocate for a pathway to citizenship – Sign NAKASEC’s petition
Action #2: Advocate for a pathway to citizenship – Call your legislators and Sen. Schumer.
Action #3: Write to V.P. Harris.
NAKASEC letter to V.P. Kamala Harris

We are tired of two rogue Democratic Senators and an unelected parliamentarian preventing the progress America needs. Today, at the Ellipse in DC, 51 people, representing the 51 votes required to pass the larger Build Back Better package, participated in a dramatic and traditional method of protest – shaving their heads as an act of personal sacrifice to demand that Vice President Harris fight harder to include a pathway to citizenship for 11 million immigrants in the package, many of whom are on the front lines as essential workers during this prolonged pandemic.

States event organizer NAKASEC – “The historical and cultural significance of a bald head cannot be understated. In religious context, a shaved head signifies one’s separation from the material and superficial world. Across cultures and generations, hair holds great significance and meaning. To voluntarily cut off or shave one’s head is an act of strength, rebellion, and devotion to one’s cause.“

Action #1: Advocate for a pathway to citizenship – Sign NAKASEC’s petition

Vice President Harris can reverse the Biden-Harris administration’s disastrous legacy on immigration by DISREGARDING the parliamentarian’s non-binding advisory opinion and provide permanent relief for millions of undocumented immigrants.

Sign their petition here: https://nakasec.org/c4all-action

(Founded in 1994, the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium’s (NAKASEC) mission is to organize Korean and Asian Americans to achieve social, economic, and racial justice. NAKASEC’s founding organizing values are: Live Right, Live Strong, Know Your Roots, and Live Together.)

Action #2: Advocate for a pathway to citizenship – Call your legislators and Sen. Schumer.

Continue reading →

Becoming a citizen shouldn’t be this hard. Let’s break the DACA logjam for this guy.

Ju Hong’s issue strikes close to home…

Every month, we join immigrant advocates, immigration lawyers, and community volunteers at Swap Meet Justice to help people fill out government forms for citizenship, DACA and green cards renewals, voter registration and selective service.

We are always impressed by our DACA applicants – this group of 800,000 hardworking and well-educated young people brought here as children are estimated to add $460.3 billion in national gross domestic product to the U.S. over the next decade and over 200,000 were essential workers during the worst of the COVID pandemic. These are exactly the people we want as citizens, but our politicians can’t seem to summon the political will to give them a pathway to that status. To continue their life in the only country they call home, they must reapply every two years, for a fee of $495, or face deportation.

Therefore, it makes us sick to learn that even when our DACA applicants do everything right, they are still vulnerable to being taken from their families, due to nothing more that a paperwork backlog at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). “As of March 31, USCIS had a backlog of more than 55,000 pending first-time DACA applications,” in addition to over 44,000 renewal requests. As of March 2021: Less than 800 — or roughly 1.5% of applicants in that period — of 50,000 received between January and March 2021 have been approved.”

So we’re asking everyone to join in and help this one person – Ju Hong, and hope that the strength of our combined voices clears a path for all the others.

(Video of him here from (2012))

“My name is Ju Hong. I serve on Immigrants Rising’s Leadership Council, and I am now facing a major crisis. I need your help.

Continue reading →

Thurs 11/14: GOP, OBEY YOUR MASTERS! Stop playing chicken with our economy by putting Dreamers at risk.

Action – Call your senators! Push through the S.874 Dream Act to the president’s desk without another one of his poisonous deals.

We’re not going to talk about Judeo-Christian concepts of welcoming strangers. We’re not going to talk about the inherent cruelty of throwing people out of the only country they’ve ever known. Trump’s base remains immune to these arguments. Instead, we’re going to talk in language the GOP claims, against all evidence, to be proficient in, i.e.- the economy. While McConnell is distracted installing as many extremist judges in lifetime positions as he can, a factor of our future economy’s success is standing before a hostile SCOTUS.

The GOP’s donor class, major companies and conservative think tanks like the Cato Institute, are alarmed. Their pet legislators seems to have forgotten that rescinding DACA protections for almost 800,000 U.S.-educated, hardworking adults, will cause serious economic harm to America, including a loss of $460.3 billion from the nation GDP over the next decade. The 10 states that put DACA in court – Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, Tennessee, Texas, South Carolina, and West Virginia—stand to suffer a self-inflicted loss of more than $8 billion annually in state GDP. More immediate concerns for businesses are 1.1 million jobs already going begging, from high tech to unskilled labor. This number is going to get larger as boomers age out of the labor pool. A harsh retirement is in store if there are not enough workers to diagnose their illnesses, fix their cars or change out sheets in their future nursing homes. Continue reading “Thurs 11/14: GOP, OBEY YOUR MASTERS! Stop playing chicken with our economy by putting Dreamers at risk.” →

This Sunday 5/26: “Swap Meet Justice!” citizenship fair! Come join us, rain or shine!

RAIN OR SHINE, FOLKS! WE HAVE WORK TO DO!

Action – THIS Sunday, 5/26 – Come join us at “Swap Meet Justice!” and help spread the word!

You do not need to be a lawyer. You do not need to speak another language. However, all volunteers with bilingual skills are appreciated.

Every last Sunday of the month! Take a couple of hours out of your 3-day weekend and have a great time!

When: 8am-3pm, 5/26, 6/30, 7/28, 8/25, 9/29, 10/27, 11/24, and 12/29. You may come for a shorter amount of time, but please come at 8:30 for new volunteer orientation. We also don’t start new applications after 1:30 or 2:00, so we can finish in time for the marketplace’s closing.

Where: Oxnard College Marketplace & Swap Meet (Map below)

FAQ’s, downloadable posters and handouts: here

Where is the Oxnard College Swap Meet? And when I get there, where do I go?

Continue reading “This Sunday 5/26: “Swap Meet Justice!” citizenship fair! Come join us, rain or shine!” →

Sunday 4/28: “Swap Meet Justice!” citizenship fair! Come join us!

Action – THIS Sunday, 4/28 – Come join us at “Swap Meet Justice!” and help spread the word!

You do not need to be a lawyer. You do not need to speak another language. However, all volunteers with bilingual skills are appreciated.

Every last Sunday of the month!

When: 8am-3pm, 4/28, 5/26, 6/30, 7/28, 8/25, 9/29, 10/27, 11/24, and 12/29. You may come for a shorter amount of time, but please come at 8:30 for new volunteer orientation. We also don’t start new applications after 1:30 or 2:00, so we can finish in time for the marketplace’s closing.

Where: Oxnard College Marketplace & Swap Meet (Map below, more information, hand-outs and posters for printing all here.)

Where is the Oxnard College Swap Meet? And when I get there, where do I go?

Continue reading “Sunday 4/28: “Swap Meet Justice!” citizenship fair! Come join us!” →

Sunday 3/31: “Swap Meet Justice!” citizenship fair! Come join us!

Note: We are rescheduling the Medicare4all door-to-door canvassing.

Action #1 – THIS Sunday, 3/31 – Come join us at “Swap Meet Justice!” and help spread the word!

You do not need to be a lawyer. You do not need to speak another language. However, all volunteers with bilingual skills are appreciated.

Every last Sunday of the month!

When: 8am-3pm, 3/31, 4/28, 5/26, 6/30, 7/28, 8/25, 9/29, 10/27, 11/24, and 12/29. You may come for a shorter amount of time, but please come at 8:30 for new volunteer orientation. We also don’t start new applications after 1:30 or 2:00, so we can finish in time for the marketplace’s closing.

Where: Oxnard College Marketplace & Swap Meet (Map below, more information, hand-outs and posters for printing all here.)

Action #2 – THIS Sunday, 3/31 – Door-to-door Medicare4all canvassing activity to be rescheduled. Stay tuned.

We will be updating with new date/time soon.

Continue reading “Sunday 3/31: “Swap Meet Justice!” citizenship fair! Come join us!” →

Sunday 3/31: 2 activities!!! “Swap Meet Justice!” citizenship fair & Medicare4all neighborhood canvass!

Action #1 – THIS Sunday, 3/31 – Come join us at “Swap Meet Justice!” and help spread the word!

You do not need to be a lawyer. You do not need to speak another language. However, all volunteers with bilingual skills are appreciated.

Every last Sunday of the month!

Where: Oxnard College Marketplace & Swap Meet (Map below, more information, hand-outs and posters for printing all here.)

Action #2 – THIS Sunday, 3/31 – Medicare4all neighborhood canvass!

While we’re at the Oxnard Swap Meet doing our normal “Swap Meet Justice!” immigration clinic and voter registration fair, we will be coordinating clipboards of volunteer materials for Medicare4all volunteers. Map to find us is below.

Continue reading “Sunday 3/31: 2 activities!!! “Swap Meet Justice!” citizenship fair & Medicare4all neighborhood canvass!” →

Fri 2/22: Immigration Friday! Email your legislators and get ready for Sunday’s “Swap Meet Justice.”

**“Far from the public eye, the Trump administration is strangling the naturalization process.”**

– Steven Choi, National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA), a coalition of advocacy groups that is pushing to offer naturalization workshops and legal services to would-be citizens

Action #1 – Ask our legislators to stop the paperwork war on those who would be citizens.

The Trump administration is sneakily interfering with the citizenship process. While the 750,793 people who have applied for citizenship since last June is a normal number (Nine million immigrants are eligible to become citizens), the rate at which their applications are being processed is the lowest in a decade. On top of the $725 immigrants must pay to apply for citizenship, the wait for naturalization is now twice what it was two years ago, ranging from ten months to 31 months in some places, with no legitimate excuse to explain the slowdown. Lawyers claim that the Citizenship & Immigration Services has become “a third immigration enforcement component of DHS.” More green card holders are being deported under harsher Trump-rules too, with their information being shared with ICE. The NPNA states that the Trump administration is creating a “second wall” of barriers to citizenship and resultant voting rights, with:

Continue reading “Fri 2/22: Immigration Friday! Email your legislators and get ready for Sunday’s “Swap Meet Justice.”” →

Next Sunday, 2/24 – Come join us at “Swap Meet Justice!” and help spread the word!

You do not need to be a lawyer. You do not need to speak another language. However, all volunteers with bilingual skills are appreciated.

Every last Sunday of the month!

When: 8am-3pm, ~~1/27~~, 2/24, 3/31, 4/28, 5/26, 6/30, 7/28, 8/25, 9/29, 10/27, 11/24, and 12/29. You may come for a shorter amount of time, but please come at 8:30 for new volunteer orientation. We also don’t start new applications after 1:30 or 2:00, so we can finish in time for the marketplace’s closing.

Where: Oxnard College Marketplace & Swap Meet (see map below and directions below)

What do we do?

We help people with qualifying permanent residency (green) cards fill out the application to become CITIZENS, and VOTERS! Three people have already become citizens since SEIU started these fairs. This is truly life-changing stuff and it just doesn’t get better than that.
We help also DACA recipients, amazing and hardworking students and workers maintain their status.
We’re now helping with GREEN card renewals and Selective Service applications.
We will also register VOTERS.

Come join us!

Continue reading “Next Sunday, 2/24 – Come join us at “Swap Meet Justice!” and help spread the word!” →

FREE DACA Renewal Clinic – get help with your paperwork! Volunteers needed!

Volunteers and immigration lawyers will assist eligible applicants fill out their DACA renewal forms at this FREE clinic!

¬Immigration attorneys!
¬ Scholarships for DACA fees available! See info below.
¬Get your DACA renewed while you can, laws are changing.

Monday, August 6th, 5:30-7:30 pm
Knights of Columbus, 136 S. Ojai St, Santa Paula

Flyers in English (here) and Spanish (here). Print them, clip the tags apart, hand them out, and plaster them all around Ventura County!

To sign up to volunteer, call (805) 650-1044. If you’ve never participated before and haven’t taken the training course, come at 5:00 pm for the training session. People with Spanish language skills are most appreciated, but not required.