Tues 7/2: Immigration judges and ICE are deliberately using high bail to fill up jails. Tell our legislators to stop this abuse and and have a SALE on BAIL!

Action – Ask your legislators to lower minimum bail from $1500 to $100 and to recycle that $1500 into a maximum bail cap.

Advocates say that one of the most effective ways of reuniting children and families is to pay their bail. The minimum bail to rescue a guest of our concentration camp system starts at $1500 a head per federal law and has no upper limit, reaching as high as $250,000. Under Trump, both immigration court judges and ICE officials are increasingly denying bond requests altogether, or setting them at amounts in excess of $10,000, deliberately making them unaffordable for many immigrant families. With all the overcrowding, why so much? After all, CA sets minimum bail for citizens (pg. 14) at $50 for infractions and $500 for misdemeanors. High bail keeps asylum seekers and others locked up in increasingly inhumane conditions at taxpayer expense or forces their families to use predatory bail bond companies with high upfront fees, mandatory ankle monitors and monthly charges. It also sucks away money they need to hire lawyers to help them plead their cases. Let’s ask legislators to fix this nightmare system, reduce the minimum bail and cap the maximum, and get people back with their families.

Minimal script: I’m calling from [zip code] to ask Rep./Sen. [___] to sponsor legislation to reduce the legal minimum bail required from $1500 to $100 and institute a maximum cap of $1500 for those who pose no danger to the community and little flight risk or who comply with FreedomforImmigrants.org’s bond program requirements. Continue reading “Tues 7/2: Immigration judges and ICE are deliberately using high bail to fill up jails. Tell our legislators to stop this abuse and and have a SALE on BAIL!” →

Thurs 6/27: Yeah, they’re concentration camps…so now what do we do?

Action #1 – If you haven’t called your legislators on HR 2415/S.1243 – Dignity for Detained immigrants” yet – start here.

Go to this link and follow the instructions in Action #3 on that page to make a 10-second call to your legislators.

Action #2 – Check out local activities!

Activities listed here.

Action #3 – Congress’s final funding bill must comply with humanitarian basics.

Both houses have passed their bills for funding addressing the humanitarian crisis at the border. Both versions include stipulations regarding migrant care and prohibit the use of the funds for a border wall. However, the Senate bill offers the Pentagon funding and has fewer rules on how agencies can appropriate the funds. The House bill has many more restrictions on how the administration can use the money and contains clear standards for the care of children. It also bans the HHS secretary from waiving requirements for facilities designated as “emergency influx shelters”, which is how the administration has gotten around the 20 days maximum of the Flores Settlement. This is how some kids in Homestead, Florida have ended up detained for as much as 8 or 9 months. Next, our legislators have to reconcile the two versions.

Continue reading “Thurs 6/27: Yeah, they’re concentration camps…so now what do we do?” →

UPDATE: Friday deadline 6/28 – Sign-up sheet for those interested in carpooling &/or a bus to detention centers for July 12th – Lights of Liberty.

Action – Fill in this poll by Friday if you’re interested in carpooling and/or a bus to Adelanto or Otay Mesa Detention Centers for July 12th!

Poll link here.

In Ventura County, a coalition of immigrants’ rights advocates and allied organizations is considering joining these protests in three locations:
1. The High Desert Detention Center in Adelanto, near Victorville (about a 90-minute drive);
2. The Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego (about a four-hour drive);
3. A protest in Camarillo, outside an ICE facility and across a freeway (DO NOT FILL OUT POLL.)

Continue reading “UPDATE: Friday deadline 6/28 – Sign-up sheet for those interested in carpooling &/or a bus to detention centers for July 12th – Lights of Liberty.” →

Mon 6/24: “Things can be concentration camps without being Dachau or Auschwitz.” Tell your legislators to defund hate and uphold human rights. 4 actions.

Quote by Andrea Pitzer, author of One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps. She describes camps as “a deliberate choice to inject the framework of war into society itself. …You are revoking the human and civil rights of non-combatants without legal justification…. you don’t have to intend to kill everyone to have really bad outcomes.”

(Go here for today’s LOCAL SOCIAL JUSTICE actions)

Action #1 – Take a moment to watch history merge with the present.

Great! We’ve fallen so low that the 99-year-old former prosecutor at the Nazi Nuremberg trials has spoken out in protest of the Trump Administration’s treatment of refugees as crimes against humanity. Below is a fascinating 60 minute conversation with a sharp, humorous, ferociously kind man who discusses our immigration laws, war, war criminals, remorse, reparations and the hope he has for our students. What he says here is why we resist. (Download the Universal Declaration of Human Rights here.)

Action #2 – Be an active resister. Speak out against the Sunday Raids.

Last Monday, our president took a moment from his busy day to threaten immigrant communities with a massive ICE raid, perversely nicknamed the “family op“. Continue reading “Mon 6/24: “Things can be concentration camps without being Dachau or Auschwitz.” Tell your legislators to defund hate and uphold human rights. 4 actions.” →

Monday – 6/24: Someday, a young person will ask you what you did during the time of concentration camps. Mark your calendars – 3 local actions – Join in!

There is a philosophy, in both Judaism and Islam, that is paraphrased “whoever destroys a life, it is as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he has saved an entire world.” 33 worlds are now gone.

(Go here for today’s LEGISLATIVE actions.)

“What did you do, grandpa?” – when our country ran amok, when we put scared, desperate men, women and children into freezing cages, when we pulled screaming toddlers from their parents’ grip, when we fed them inadequate or rotten food, or trapped them in vans, or carried their bodies out of our facilities.

Over the last week, we’ve read ferocious arguments on Facebook over the term “concentration camp“. We’ve seen “READ HISTORY!” hurled at each other on Twitter. We watched “Never Again” being reduced from the robust internal tripwire it should be to a verbal tombstone.

Yes, social messaging is a crucial issue in our modern political world. Everyone should be reminding their media circles that we can’t let shame or denial keep us from hearing the warning 6 million souls are screaming to us. There are also active things we can do to help drive that message, to connect with other resisters and to help affected people directly. Here are some options…

Action #1 – June 29th – “Know Your Rights” Workshop

This event, and another offered on July 9th in a different location, are sponsored by Buen Vecino and will be conducted in Spanish. If you’re interested to becoming a Know-Your-Rights educator in English, Spanish or in other languages, check out buen-vecino for further information.

Continue reading “Monday – 6/24: Someday, a young person will ask you what you did during the time of concentration camps. Mark your calendars – 3 local actions – Join in!” →