Category: Racism

JHISN Newsletter 1/23/2021

Posted on January 23, 2021 by - 2021, Coronavirus, History, Immigration, News, Newsletter, Racism

Dear friends, 

This week, a different cry went up near the steps of the US Capitol: “If we’re to live up to our own time // Then victory won’t lie in the blade // But in all the bridges we’ve made // That is the promised glade  // The hill we climb if only we dare it // Because being American is more than a pride we inherit // It’s the past we step into // And how we repair it.”  In solidarity with the fierce spirit of Amanda Gorman, a young Black woman poet laureate who captured the inaugural stage, we offer you this week’s newsletter.

On the cusp of political change—a moment of promise that so many have fought for, and a moment of danger that together we must name—we analyze the connection between an emergent US fascism and anti-immigrant hatred. Closer to home, we then look at the politics of distributing the Covid vaccine in immigrant communities like Jackson Heights. Finally, we offer a local history of immigrant justice groups and the key role of women’s leadership in repairing the past and making bridges … in our own time.        

Newsletter highlights:

  1. US fascism and anti-immigrant politics
  2. Vaccine rollout and NYC immigrant communities
  3. Women-led immigrant activism

1. Hatred of immigrants fuels US fascism

After four years of relentless racist attacks, sponsored and directed by the highest levels of government, hatred of immigrants of color has become a more normal, open feature of mainstream politics in the US. This hatred provides fuel for a rising wave of fascism: a revolutionary movement of the racist Right that treats the existing “deep state” government as an “anti-American” fraud. Not all anti-immigrant sentiment is fascist. But fury against immigration plays a central role in the rise of fascism here, as it does in other countries around the globe. This is evident within the key political trends feeding into the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol—Proud Boys, QAnon, and the militia movement:

  • Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes constantly mocks and insults immigrants and people of color. “I love being white,” he says….”I don’t want our culture diluted. We need to close the borders now.” Enrique Tarrio, the new head of Proud Boys, is the son of conservative Cuban immigrants. He denies that he (or Trump, or law enforcement) is fascist, or racist. But in online chat rooms, Tarrio and other Proud Boys spew white nationalist hate and call for violence against undocumented people. Tarrio’s Twitter feed was suspended in 2018 after he tweeted racist comments about Black actor Leslie Jones, and slurred Islam, Jews, and trans people.
  • QAnon supporters, who promote a bizarre conspiracy theory alleging that top Democrats are running a massive pedophilia ring, also pretend to be inclusive. But they are deeply implicated in anti-immigrant politics. Ashli Babbitt, the QAnon “martyr” shot to death while invading the Capitol, posted videos “ranting about immigration at San Diego’s southern border.” Marjorie Taylor Green, the new QAnon congresswoman, considers immigration “a full on illegal invasion.”
  • Anti-immigrant hatred is a prominent feature of the national right-wing militia movement. The Oath Keepers, a large militia drawn from law enforcement and the military, is convinced that undocumented immigrants are part of a Democrat plot to shatter US society. (Two of the people arrested last week after the insurrection are members of the Ohio State Regular Militia, a subset of the Oath Keepers.) The Three Percenters consider immigrants and Muslims to be enemies, while the insurrectionary Boogaloo movement is “a broad anti-government movement that is full of white power activists” promoting race war. These three militias were key actors in the Capitol attack.

Fascism walks hand in hand with racist attacks on immigrants. US fascism is also rooted in anti-Black racism, as the many Confederate flags waving during the Capitol invasion proudly proclaimed. It’s of grave concern that the cancer of fascism has become deeply embedded inside police forces and the military. Notably, neo-nazis and other fascists are highly active inside ICE and the Border Patrol.

As the Trump regime leaves office, hopes are high that the new administration will reverse his anti-immigrant policies. But the fascists and their hard-core white supremacist allies aren’t going away. The immigrant justice movement must join with the Black justice movement and other progressive people to turn back the fascists’ violent threat, and to uproot their social influence. The boldness, militance, and size of the attack on the Capitol indicate that this will have to be a sustained struggle.

2. New York will not share citizenship status with feds during Covid vaccination

As New York begins rolling out the Covid-19 vaccine, public health officials and advocates urgently stress the importance of getting it to marginalized communities, including immigrants.

As part of that effort, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo last month announced that the state will not share identifying information with the federal government that could be used to determine an individual’s citizenship status. Sharing this sensitive data could have discouraged undocumented immigrants—many of whom are essential workers—from getting the vaccine. 

The announcement came soon after Governor Cuomo sent a letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, requesting in part that HHS allow New York to develop its own system to keep track of vaccinated individuals and administration of doses. The December 1 letter objected to the federal government’s original requirement that states provide information on individuals receiving the vaccine—such as social security, passport, or driver’s license numbers—that could be used to determine if a person is documented.

The letter was signed by the governor and leaders of 52 community groups, including Queens-based organizations like New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE) and Adhikaar, as well as Make the Road New York.

The success of the vaccination campaign will likely be determined by its rollout in communities of color, which include many immigrants. Not only have these communities been hit hardest by the virus, but they include large numbers of essential workers who can’t work from home. Reaching them for vaccination will be key for New York to prevent more loss and achieve herd immunity—the point when enough people are immune that the virus can’t spread. (Officials often say that about three-quarters of the U.S. population would need to be vaccinated to get to herd immunity.)

At the same time, some members of these communities have said they’re skeptical about getting vaccinated, something advocates have warned about given long histories of mistreatment and neglect by scientific and medical institutions.

“We are working hard with the undocumented and Indigenous immigrant population,” Janet Perez, director of programs at Sunset Park-based Mixteca, said last month. “Our goal is that they also have access to those vaccines.”

As with most other aspects of the pandemic response, policies to distribute the vaccine vary from state to state. New Jersey officials said all residents and workers in the state can get the vaccine, including those without documentation.

Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts was criticized early this month for saying undocumented immigrants wouldn’t be included in the early vaccine rollout—even though many of those individuals work in meatpacking plants, which have been well-known sites of outbreaks. A spokesperson later said that while proof of citizenship won’t be required to get vaccinated, “Nebraska is going to prioritize citizens and legal residents ahead of illegal immigrants.”

The confusion and stigmatization come during an already complicated vaccine distribution effort that’s been slowed by high demand and short supply, and frequently changing guidelines on who’s eligible. Many of these problems have been attributed to mismanagement at the federal level that’s kept states from getting vaccines and, until recently, withheld critical funding for distribution. President Joe Biden is aiming to distribute 100 million vaccines in his first hundred days in office.

In New York City, health care workers and people 65 years and older, as well as public-facing grocery store workers, teachers, and homeless shelter residents, are eligible to sign up for a vaccine appointment. However, appointments are hard to come by, and over 20,000 appointments were canceled this week due to lack of vaccine. At the current rate, the governor has said it could take until the summer for those eligible to get vaccinated and for the rest of the state to begin. What remains clear is that the inclusion of immigrant workers and communities is vital to the success of any vaccination program in New York. 

WHAT CAN WE DO?

3. Local History: Women and Immigrant Activism

This week, the daughter of two immigrants was sworn in as the first Black, South Asian, and female vice-president of the United States. On the campaign trail, Kamala Harris laid out a roadmap to citizenship for DREAMers, another example of the power of women’s leadership in the recent history of immigrant activism. Women’s leadership has also been central in our own Queens-based neighborhood organizations.

Immigrant rights activism is not an old story. After the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act granted legal status to almost three million undocumented immigrants, border enforcement also became more harsh; more immigrants stayed in the US instead of migrating back and forth. The unintended effects of IRCA actually increased the number of undocumented workers living in the US, which prompted the development of organized groups advocating for their right to stay and for safe work conditions … these groups needed activist leaders.

Immigrant rights groups share goals with civil rights and labor movements, but don’t share the tradition of dominant male leadership. Studies of immigrant activist groups in California suggest that since many immigrant justice groups were created after struggles for women’s rights, the women who had migrated to the US and had to work outside the home, were motivated to take on those leadership roles. In Queens, we can tell similar stories.

In the early nineties, Latin Women in Action was founded by Haydee Zambrana in Corona for Hispanic women and families in Queens. Shortly after, Sakhi for South Asian Women started tabling in Jackson Heights for women’s rights as part of International Women’s Day. At the end of the `90s, Sakhi spun off a Queens-based Women’s Domestic Workers Committee group called Workers Awaaz. Closing the decade, NICE developed in response to anti-immigrant billboards placed in Queens. (In 2020 a founding board member of NICE, Jessica González-Rojas, was elected to represent the 34th Assembly District).

In the 2000’s Seema Agnani, a founder of Jackson Heights-based Chhaya CDC, created housing and economic support for low-income South Asian Workers building from her experience working at Asian Americans for Equality’s housing and neighborhood development program. Shortly after that Monami Maulik founded DRUM to build up the power of South Asian workers. Damayan was co-founded by Linda Oalican to support Filipino domestic workers, and Voces Latinas was co-founded by Nathaly Rubio-Torio to reduce violence and HIV transmission among immigrant Latinas. In that same decade, Luna Ranjit helped create Adhikaar in Woodside for the Nepali community to promote human rights and social justice. In nearby Astoria, the RIF Center was established by Maria Blacque-Belair to support the legal needs of refugees and asylum seekers.

While the idea for Immigrant Movement International was conceived by artist Tania Bruguera in 2006, it took four years and support from the Queens Museum to create a space for its services, where artists use their skills to advocate for immigration reform. IMI was the seed that became Centro Corona which shares a close connection with woman-led Queens Neighborhoods United—a local activist group that advocates for democratic control over land use, policing, and immigration policies.

Join with JHISN in honoring the historical leadership of the many women-led organizations that advocate and fight for immigrant workers, families, and communities.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

  • Donate to DRUM’s Campaign and Leadership Development Fund to support future women leaders.
  • Be inspired by the life of Queens immigrant/AIDS/LGBTQ/Sex Worker activist Lorena Borjas who tragically died of Covid in 2020, at the age of 59.
  • Join our developing crowdsourced JHISN initiative to build out a robust timeline of immigrant activist work in our neighborhood – contact timeline@jhimmigrantsolidarity.org for more information.

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network

Follow @JHSolidarity on Facebook and Twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN.

 

JHISN Newsletter 1/9/2021

Posted on January 9, 2021 by - 2021, Activism, Immigration, News, Newsletter, Politics, Racism

Dear friends,

We live in a neighborhood that celebrates an extraordinary range of new years. Sweet new year’s greetings to all who mark time by the Gregorian calendar. This month we also mark a change of political seasons: a regime that began with howls of white nationalism now explodes with the fist of fascist violence. As Trump is forced from executive power, with the new administration still an unknown quantity, our newsletter focuses on the urgent demand for a moratorium on the deportation and detention of US immigrants. Also, we offer a close-up look at the grassroots work of one local immigrant justice group that continues to organize power and political solidarity during the pandemic.  

For those of you who are financially able, please consider donating all or part of your $600 Covid relief check to JHISN’s ‘Neighborhood Emergency!’ fundraising campaign. The campaign directs all donations to six immigrant-led community groups. If you can afford to donate all $600, that’s $100 for each of the six immigration groups!  

  • History & Future of a Deportation Moratorium 
  • DRUM Builds Power and Solidarity during the Pandemic

1. What Kind of Moratorium? 

President-elect Joe Biden’s repeated promise to implement a 100-day moratorium on deportations came about because of sustained grassroots pressure. The demand for a moratorium on deportation and immigrant detention has been a common theme of immigration justice activists for years. By agreeing to a moratorium, Biden has elevated it as a mainstream political issue. The question now is what his moratorium will look like, and whether it will be more than symbolic. Will the moratorium respect and address the recent history of specific demands by immigration activists?  

  • In 2014, near the end of the Obama administration, a huge coalition of 159 organizations called for a moratorium under the slogan NOT1MORE. Endorsing groups included the New York Immigration Coalition, Make the Road, DRUM, Chhaya, and the American Federation of Teachers. The coalition asked Obama to “stop the raids, provide relief from unjust removals, and uphold the civil, human, and labor rights of the undocumented population in the US.” 
  • After March 2020, 70 groups asked Congress to pass the Immigration Enforcement Moratorium Act, which would release people in ICE detention and halt ICE deportations and detentions during the pandemic. Also, a call for a moratorium on deportations to Haiti during the Covid-19 crisis was endorsed by several groups, including Adhikaar.
  • Since early last year, Cosecha’s Dignity2020 campaign has highlighted three demands: 1) an end to all immigrant detention and deportation; 2) immediate legalization for all 11 million undocumented immigrants; and 3) family reunification for everyone separated by detention and deportation. They argue that “Any politician serious about immigrant dignity must commit to” these demands.
  • Other prominent immigrant rights groups and leaders promote a “moratorium on all ICE operations, deportations and detentions” as part of the Migrant Justice Platform. The Platform aims to “identify specific actions that the next administration can immediately take to begin to repair the harm caused by Donald Trump.”
  • The ACLU advocates a moratorium on deportation and suggests a series of steps to reform the immigration system while deportation is frozen.
  • The AllOfUS1/27 campaign, endorsed by Make the Road and several other organizations, is building for an action later this month in DC and other cities to oppose the Muslim Ban and call for a general deportation/detention moratorium.

So how will the new administration incorporate–or sidestep–this recent history of moratorium demands? 100 days doesn’t seem like much time to sweep all the white nationalists and sadists out of ICE and the Border Patrol, let alone substantially reform the immigration system. Will the new administration make exceptions to the moratorium that undermine its force? Will the current mass incarceration of immigrants waiting for their hearings continue during the moratorium? What happens on Day 101?

There are some worrying signs. Some of Biden’s advisors seem to resent pressure they are getting from immigration activists, claiming activists are “too adversarial.” According to NPR, “there are a number of people within Team Biden who are just uncomfortable with a lot of the policy initiatives that they recommend.” One of the biggest points of contention is the deportation of immigrants with criminal records. During the “Deporter-in-Chief” Obama administration, thousands of people were ripped apart from their families and deported for minor offenses. NPR reports that Biden has met repeatedly with “moderate” immigration groups like the National Immigration Forum (NIF) that continue to promote the divisive discourse of “good immigrants” vs. “bad immigrants.” This distinction has served as a pretext for racist demonization and massive deportation programs for decades, under both Republican and Democratic administrations. NIF’s ‘moderate’ position is that immigrant communities don’t want to “see a moratorium on the deportation of public safety threats.” A look at the NIF’s Board of Directors shows the weight of corporate money behind this position.

There are some hopeful signs for Biden/Harris immigration policy, however. They have endorsed creating a roadmap to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants, and a series of other progressive steps, including fortification of DACA and Temporary Protective Status (TPS). Although he hasn’t included immigrant detention in his promised moratorium so far, Biden has called for closing private immigration prisons and for freeing most immigrants awaiting ICE hearings. It appears that some immigration justice arguments have gotten through to him. But clearly, there will be an ongoing struggle among Democrats over the nature and purpose of a moratorium and many other aspects of immigration policy. How can we make sure that the collective voices and demands of immigration activists are heard, and make a real difference, in that struggle?

WHAT CAN WE DO?

2. Rising Up & Moving in a Pandemic – DRUM Builds Community Power

Crises transform society. We will never return to the way things were. While billionaires have increased their wealth by $584 billion, the people and movements must continue to fight in order to ensure that we shape the direction of our society. We need to mobilize a base of people that are ready to engage in collective efforts to restructure society in ways that serve human needs and … a culture of solidarity and mutuality. DRUM report 2020

As the pandemic shut down everyday life in March 2020, local immigrant justice groups were faced with a nightmare dilemma: how to meet crisis-level community needs just as you had to close up your office, end face-to-face organizing, and conduct all work remotely? Desis Rising Up & Moving (DRUM)—with their office in Jackson Heights and with South Asian and Indo-Caribbean members based in Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx—just published a Community Report chronicling their extraordinary response to this nightmare.

Pivoting their work “to meet people’s realities,” DRUM designed and launched a new campaign during the pandemic: Building Power & Safety Through Solidarity. The campaign aimed both to address members’ urgent needs concerning food, health, housing, money and to mobilize political analysis and collective empowerment to address deeper histories and structures informing the crisis. Presenting stories, artwork, analysis, biographical sketches, statistics, and concrete strategies and recommendations, the Community Report offers a model for how to organize, and even strengthen membership, during a devastating health and social emergency.

As women members of DRUM built rent strikes in their own buildings, they also built women’s power and challenged gendered conventions of domestic labor. As mutual aid networks delivered food and direct assistance, they created relationships that can be mobilized to defend against evictions or abolish ICE. As DRUM reached out to members, in their own languages, about safety protocols and preventive measures against Covid, they also educated about the history of hospital closures (18 NYC hospitals closed down) and the structures of austerity and privatized health care that left a public hospital like Elmhurst vulnerable to being quickly overwhelmed by the pandemic.

After asking individuals about their basic needs and providing relevant updates about policies impacting their lives, we agitated members to make clear the structural factors that led to the current crisis. Agitation served as a bridge connecting their material realities to the need for organizing for collective liberation. It provided an opportunity to reflect on why the richest country in the world was facing the worst crisis. —DRUM report 2020

During the six-month-long campaign, DRUM made over 12,075 phone calls and talked with 2,175 people who expressed interest in becoming a DRUM member. These numbers are remarkable. But the real story of the Building Power & Safety Through Solidarity campaign is how DRUM met the crisis with imagination and political strategy, linking the immediate struggle for mutual aid in the pandemic to the long-term “fight for the society we deserve.”   

In the middle of all this death and sadness, this campaign was the only powerful thing I could do. –Syeda, DRUM member, DRUM report 2020

WHAT CAN WE DO?

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network

Follow @JHSolidarity on Facebook and Twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN. 

 

 

JHISN Newsletter 12/05/2020

Posted on December 5, 2020 by - 2020, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Immigration, Jackson Heights, News, Newsletter, Politics, Racism, Refugee Crisis, Your Rights, Your Voice

Photo: Barbara Mutnick

 

Dear friends,

December arrives with measured optimism that one of the most viciously anti-immigrant administrations in US history will soon be out of power. JHISN wants to take this moment to thank our newsletter readers for the encouraging responses we received in our recent reader survey. “Keep doing what you are doing” was one of your clear messages—and we will. Readers expressed most interest in locally-focused immigration news and the work of local immigrant justice groups, so you will find more of it here in our pages. Readers looking for practical actions that make a difference can find concrete ideas in our regular ‘WHAT CAN WE DO?’ sections.

For survey respondents who said they would like to volunteer with JHISN—helping out with social media, or joining a working group—our survey was anonymous, so we don’t know who you are! Please send us a follow-up email at info@jhimmigrantsolidarity.org with the subject line “I’d like to volunteer”.

We continue our ‘Neighborhood Emergency!’ fundraising campaign as winter arrives and food insecurity, housing, job loss, and health, remain intersecting crises for many immigrant households. Your donation goes directly to local immigrant-led community groups who are providing, under extraordinarily difficult conditions, emergency support throughout the pandemic. Gratitude to everyone who has already contributed to the campaign!

Newsletter highlights:

  1.   Local Activism Intensifies to Fund Excluded Workers
  2.   Mobilizing for a Moratorium on Deportations and Detentions

1. Local Activism: Tax the Rich! Fund Excluded Workers!

On November 24, 2020, two noteworthy events took place. First, local activists with the Fund Excluded Workers Coalition gathered in a mock breadline outside Governor Cuomo’s office to dramatize the unmet needs of immigrant New Yorkers during the pandemic. And second, the total wealth gain of US billionaires during the COVID-19 crisis surpassed $1 trillion by the close of the stock markets, a 34% increase since mid-March.

As we reported in a previous newsletter, the campaign to Fund Excluded Workers (FEW) brings together several local immigrant justice groups including Adhikaar, Make the Road, NICE, Street Vendor Project, DRUM, and Chhaya. Together, they are demanding emergency support for immigrant workers excluded from federal relief, funded through a New York State billionaires tax. Activists have marched in the summer Hamptons with protest signs and pitchforks, held a public sleep-over on the sidewalk outside Jeff Bezos’ Fifth Avenue penthouse, joined in a hunger fast in Madison Square Park, and used the historic symbolism of the breadline to dramatize the obscene mismatch between the surplus of the very wealthy and the stinging hardship of everyday workers during the pandemic.

Several Democrats who promised to tax the rich and build an economy to serve working people got elected in statewide contests on November 3, boosting the chances that this community-led struggle can be won. Grassroots groups immediately called on the post-election state legislature to raise taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers. Immigrant justice groups and the FEW Coalition are potentially poised to wield increased power as new Democratic supermajorities in both the Senate and Assembly move New York’s state politics—and its coronavirus response—in more progressive directions. 

Undocumented workers, and immigrants in the informal economy (day laborers, vendors, sex workers, food delivery workers), have struggled to withstand the pandemic crisis with zero federal emergency relief. No stimulus check. No unemployment benefits. A recent report on “The Pandemic Recession” notes:

The overall unemployment rates are dramatic, and every group is deeply affected by the COVID-19 recession. But, immigrants and people of color are hit far harder by unemployment. And undocumented immigrants may be hit hardest of all, while also being left out of aid… —Fiscal Policy Institute, November 2020

While there are few direct measures of unemployment among the estimated 490,000 undocumented workers in New York State, we do know that undocumented labor is concentrated in industries hit hardest by the crisis: hotels, restaurants, and food services. The nail salon industry in NY, which hums on undocumented women’s work, has seen a 50% drop in customers as of October. Here in Jackson Heights, we don’t need to look any further than the block-long lines at food banks to see that immigrant communities, and our undocumented neighbors, need immediate support—not systematic exclusion from emergency economic aid. Fund. Excluded. Workers. Now. 

WHAT CAN WE DO?

2. For Hope—and a Real Moratorium

In this election, Americans chose a new path forward. We will hold President-elect Biden accountable to the promise he made on the campaign trail to respect immigrant communities and fight hard so that we can remain with our families in this country. —Anu Joshi, NY Immigration Coalition, Brian Lehrer Show, WNYC, 9/10/20

This is a season of hope for immigrants and everyone who believes in immigrant justice. Donald Trump, the anti-immigrant terrorist-in-chief, is gradually being dragged out of the White House, kicking and screaming. Joe Biden, the President-elect, promises to undo many of Trump’s most destructive policies on immigration and claims to support substantial reforms. His campaign statement on immigration, clearly influenced by AOC and Bernie Sanders, was a noticeable improvement over decades of conservative Democratic Party policy. 

Nobody was particularly surprised when Biden pledged to reverse Trump’s Muslim Ban and family separation policies. Or when the candidate said he would restore TPS, DACA, and pre-existing asylum laws. Or when he proposed to reverse draconian “public charge” regulations, send humanitarian resources to the Mexican border, provide aid for Central American countries, and broaden visa programs. What was more encouraging, and more of a break with the past, was Biden’s full-throated cry for a “roadmap to citizenship” for 11 million long-term undocumented people: 

These are our mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters. They are our neighbors, co-workers, and members of our congregations and Little League teams. They contribute in countless ways to our communities, workforce, and economy.    —Biden campaign statement

Yes, there are reasons for hope. But hope is not enough.

We can never forget that Biden was part of the administration that deported more immigrants than any regime in US history. (He has at least admitted that this was “a mistake.”) Biden’s refusal to call for dismantling ICE or the Border Patrol signals the limits of his vision for immigrant justice. Trying to “reform” these cesspools of racism and anti-immigrant ideology can easily be dead-ended by resistance inside and outside the agencies.

Any meaningful immigration reform will require solid commitment from the new administration—and possibly a Senate majority. 

Untangling the human rights disaster at the southern border will also be extremely challenging. Tens of thousands of asylum-seekers are waiting in camps in Mexico; tens of thousands more wish to cross. Processing all these urgent applications, under changing regulations, with immigration agencies in turmoil, will take time and massive resources.

Similarly, many of Trump’s reactionary executive orders are “sticky”—they can’t be overturned immediately. Some of them overlap, requiring that they be reversed in a specific order. Biden’s reforms will have to be made according to complex legal procedures, and will provoke numerous court challenges.

Immigrants, under extreme pressure from ICE and DHS, and from Covid-19, cannot wait while government bureaucracies grind through years of debates and formalities, with no guarantees that this process will result in major improvements. That’s why, since long before the presidential race, JHISN has called for a complete moratorium on deportations and detentions until the broken, racist immigration system gets fixed. We think this is a key organizing focus: a way to keep up the pressure on politicians during the current emergency, and to prioritize the basic human rights of migrants.

To his credit, Joe Biden has promised a partial, conditional deportation freeze. During the primary debates in March, he “committed to halting deportations of nearly all immigrants in the country illegally…..He would place a moratorium on deportations in the first 100 days of his administration and then would only look to deport people convicted of felonies.” This freeze proposal has been repeated in various forms during the post-election period. 

Like much of the Biden program, this is a step in the right direction—but isn’t nearly enough. One hundred days is not enough time to reform the system. Also, most felonies—which include things like failure to appear in court or small-time drug possession—don’t deserve to be punished with the radical sentence of deportation, which separates families and ruins lives. Finally, we need to have a moratorium that includes immigration detentions, not just deportations.

In the coming months, JHISN will renew our call for a real moratorium, one that brings sustained relief for immigrants. The election has brought us some hope—but we need to keep organizing.

WHAT CAN WE DO?:

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network

Follow @JHSolidarity on Facebook and Twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN. 

 

JHISN Newsletter 08/15/2020

Posted on August 15, 2020 by - 2020, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Black Lives Matter, Coronavirus, ICE, Immigration, Jackson Heights, News, Newsletter, Politics, Racism, Your Rights, Your Voice

Dear friends,

This week we take a focused look at the intersecting emergencies faced by thousands of community members in Jackson Heights. Some have started to call it, simply, ‘the cliff,’ that dangerous edge where housing eviction, income loss, health and food insecurity, and lack of government support now threaten to push people into economic free fall. As an increasingly authoritarian White House–in violation of the Constitution–orders undocumented immigrants to not be counted when apportioning congressional districts, we need urgently to ask ‘Who counts?’ Who counts during a deadly pandemic? Do some count more than others? Who decides?

The Cliff

Virtually the entire population we serve is jobless and facing food insecurity. —Anetta Seecharran, Executive Director, Chhaya (Queens, NY)

It shouldn’t ever get this bad, in one of the richest cities in one of the richest countries on earth. Nevertheless, working-class immigrants in New York City, and the US as a whole, are confronting a devastating economic crisis that threatens their very survival. Already brutally battered by coronavirus, and reeling under constant police and DHS repression, millions of immigrant families have now been pushed to the edge of a financial cliff as basic needs go unmet, debt piles up to the sky, and crushing unemployment surges to Depression-era levels.

In the Jackson Heights area, working-class immigrants of all nationalities are in emergency mode. Gotham Gazette reports that hundreds of Bangladeshis have died from coronavirus in New York City, and thousands have become sick. Many lack health insurance. One in three Bangladeshis lives in poverty, but many are being passed over entirely for government assistance programs because they are undocumented. Communication from the City government to Bangla speakers has been poor, obstructing access to accurate health care information, food resources, and unemployment compensation.

A new report by Make the Road New York details the economic hardship faced by local working-class immigrants, mostly Latinx, who were surveyed at the end of July. Sixty-six percent of the respondents are out of work. About 60% were unable to pay rent for May, June, and July; almost all were worried about paying August rent. Among unemployed undocumented respondents, 98% have received no government economic assistance whatsoever; the same is true for 60% of the unemployed citizens.

In Corona, as in other parts of our neighborhood, the effects are stark:

Shutters are down on businesses that have closed permanently. Many people haven’t paid rent in weeks, said Pedro Rodríguez, executive director of La Jornada, a food pantry. “We have gone from 20 to 30 new clients a week to thousands in the last three months….” (Washington Post, July 28, 2020)

On top of food insecurity and unemployment, working-class immigrants are facing an explosive housing crisis. New York State and the federal government have extended eviction freezes month by month. There are partial rental assistance programs for some New York tenants. But whenever the programs and temporary freezes end, thousands of dollars of accumulated rent will suddenly come due for already-impoverished families. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, 30-40 million people are at risk of being evicted by the end of the year in the US; this includes hundreds of thousands in New York. Despite the supposed freezes, landlords are already lining up to file for judgments and evictions in a newly-reopened Housing Court.

Immigrant-led organizations, mutual aid networks, and some local progressive politicians are making heroic efforts to deliver funding, food, and services to working-class immigrant families. Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez has raised over $1 million for COVID-19 direct relief for immigrant and excluded workers, distributed to nearly 40 community and grassroots groups, including several in Queens. But donations and volunteers, crucial as they are, can’t be expected to meet the long-term survival needs of millions of people abandoned by a cruel and corrupt government during this crisis. 

Meanwhile, the rich get richer. 118 New York billionaires increased their wealth by more than $77 billion during the first three months of the Covid-19 shutdown. US insurance companies doubled their profits in the midst of the pandemic.

Progressive activists and immigrant justice groups have gathered around two major demands:

  1. Increase taxes on billionaires and millionaires to create a fund to help those excluded from current government benefits. Local State Senator Jessica Ramos authored one of several bills to make this happen. On August 9, over 300 people rallied and marched down Roosevelt Ave in support of the Billionaires’ Tax. (Governor Cuomo says he is firmly opposed, while also scooping up campaign contributions from billionaire families.)
  2. Rent and mortgage cancellation. Legislation to cancel rent for tenants facing hardship has so far been pushed aside by Democratic leaders in Albany. But grass-roots pressure is growing, accelerated by demonstrations and rent strikes.

It’s not just individuals who find themselves at the edge of a cliff. It’s our whole community. Powerful forces seem ready to destroy, by design and by neglect, the fabric of our neighborhood, and the immigrant families who are its heart. How will we fight back? Will we keep them from pushing us over into the abyss?

WHAT CAN WE DO?   As regular readers know, JHISN usually ends each newsletter section with this question, proposing a set of concrete actions that readers can take. Today, we leave the question open. Jackson Heights, together with working-class and immigrant communities around the country, faces a cascading set of deep crises. They will not resolve in a few weeks or a few months. They will unfold across our communities in uneven and profoundly unequal ways. The question of what we can do–collectively and with sustained solidarity–is one we dwell in, together. 

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network

Follow @JHSolidarity on Facebook and twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN. 

 

JHISN Newsletter 07/18/2020

Posted on July 18, 2020 by - 2020, Black Lives Matter, citizenship, Coronavirus, History, ICE, Immigration, Jackson Heights, News, Newsletter, Politics, Racism, Your Rights, Your Voice

Dear Friends,

We hope this unexpected summer-in-pandemic-times might also bring you unexpected pleasures, including a deeper sense of community and neighborhood. Normally, this time of year, JHISN would be outside tabling on 37th Avenue. This summer, the newsletter is our digital ‘table.’ We are encouraged to know how many of you are reading it, via email and social media. Please share it, please let it feed your actions and political imagination. 

Newsletter Highlights:

  1. Funds for Excluded Workers: Hunger Fast & March On Billionaires in NYC
  2. History of Dominican Community @ Jackson Heights
  3. COVID-19’s impact on Black Immigrant Domestic Workers

1. Fasting for Justice—#FundExcludedWorkers

At noon on Thursday, July 16, amidst the lush mid-summer green of Madison Square Park, over one hundred excluded workers and their allies—immigrant day laborers, domestic workers, street vendors, nail salon workers, farmworkers, religious leaders, and elected officials—began a 24-hour hunger fast. Fasting activists in the park were surrounded by live performances and a #NamingTheLost memorial altar, honoring community members who have already died from COVID-19. The public fast shined light on the brutal fact that undocumented immigrant New Yorkers, many of them also essential workers, have been starved of government financial assistance during the public health crisis.

Facing food insecurity, job loss, and the threat of homelessness, these excluded and essential workers are at the heart of the #FundExcludedWorkers campaign. The campaign—endorsed by over 90 immigrant and social justice groups including DRUM, Adhikaar, Street Vendor Project, Make the Road NY, and JHISN—calls for a billionaire wealth tax in New York State to pay for emergency survival funds for immigrant workers and households. So … just across from the park where fasting protesters spent the night, dozens of immigrant New Yorkers on Thursday also held a sidewalk ‘sleep-in’ in front of the Fifth Avenue penthouse of Amazon founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos. Bezos is one of 118 billionaires living in New York State who have together increased their value by $45 billion since the start of the pandemic, and who now hold a breathtaking total of $556 billion in ‘billionaire wealth.’

In a broader study of the economic and political power of billionaires in the U.S., the Institute for Policy Studies reports that in the past 30 years, billionaire wealth has increased by a stunning 1,130 % (in 2020 dollars). In the same 3 decades the tax obligations of U.S. billionaires, measured as a percentage of their wealth, has decreased by 79%. Recent ‘pandemic profiteering’ allows billionaire wealth to soar even as tens of millions of households struggle to pay rent, buy groceries, and survive the crisis.  

The public fast and sleep-in culminated Friday morning with activists walking in a lively March on Billionaires from Madison Square Park to Cuomo’s office. A just recovery demands that the Governor implement the billionaire tax and support over 1 million workers in NY who have been excluded so far from any emergency financial relief. 

WHAT CAN WE DO?

2. History & Politics of Dominican Immigration

Dominicans are the largest Latinx nationality in New York City, numbering over 800,000 people. “Today, the pattern of Dominican immigrants tends to be a settlement in Washington Heights/Inwood followed by a move to another borough.” Dominicans have become the second-largest immigrant group in the Jackson Heights area.

Dominican migration has been heavily impacted by US imperialism. The US military invaded and occupied the Dominican Republic from 1916 until 1924. This period cemented the economic control of US-owned banks and sugar plantations, reinforced by white supremacy. 

After the occupation, the US Marine Corps groomed Dominican National Guard General Rafael Trujillo to take over, sponsoring his military coup in 1930. Trujillo, who ruled for 31 years, “was one of the most ruthless dictators in modern Latin American history. He was notorious for his torture chambers, his massacres of protesters, and his genocide of tens of thousands of ethnic Haitians. Trujillo accumulated billions of dollars through corruption. Under his rule, the Dominican Republic became a center for terrorism against progressive movements throughout the hemisphere.

After Trujillo’s assassination in 1961, there was a period of political upheaval. Juan Bosch, a progressive, was elected in 1963. But he was soon overthrown in yet another military coup, backed by 23,000 US troops. The new dictator was Joaquín Balaguer, a brutal, racist Trujillo protege. These events prompted the first major wave of Dominican migration to the US, which included both opponents of the regime and people simply fleeing social chaos.

Migration from the Dominican Republic accelerated in the 1980s. It was fueled by a huge Latin American economic crisis, often called the “Lost Decade.” As one historian puts it, “the debt crisis of the 1980s is the most traumatic economic event in Latin America’s economic history.” Those who fled to the US included a mix of very poor people, plus professionals and other middle-class Dominicans looking for economic opportunity.

Economic opportunity isn’t always easy to come by here, though. As of 2017, the median income for full-time Dominican workers in the US is $32,000; 21-23% of the Dominican population lives in poverty. As an Afro-Latinx people, Dominicans are often confronted with white racism and discrimination; many live in fear of ICE raids.

In recent years, the main route for Dominican migration to the US has been through reunification with family members who are already here. Trump’s new “public charge” regulations may have a significant effect on the ability of working-class Dominicans to acquire green cards in the future.

Dominicans in the US actively discuss the politics of anti-Blackness, prompted partly by the Black Lives Matter movement. Dominican student Roderich Martinez gives a personal point of view:

Throughout history, Dominicans have greatly acknowledged the Europeans who took over the island, Hispaniola, while at the same time minimizing the importance of the Africans who were slaves at the same time….There are places I go in New York City where people immediately assume that I am just black. The moment they hear me talk, I get a reaction like, OH MY GOD! I thought you were one of the black people. I am not going to lie, the uneducated me of three years ago would’ve answered: “Oh no, I’m just Dominican with dark skin.” Today, I would say, “Dominicans come in all different shapes and colors and I am black.”

WHAT CAN WE DO?

  • Make a digital visit to the Museo Memorial de la Resistencia Dominicana in Santo Domingo, featuring in-depth research on the long Dominican resistance to dictatorship and imperialism.
  • Fight to overturn “public charge” rules that could prevent working-class Dominicans from getting green cards; Support Congresswoman Grace Meng’s No Public Charge Deportation Act, endorsed by over 50 immigrant rights groups.

3. How COVID-19 Impacts Black Immigrant Domestic Workers

Just 10 years ago, the New York State Legislature passed the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. Remarkably, this was the first time that any state included domestic workers in the labor laws protecting other worker categories. Two Queens-based immigrant justice groups, Adhikaar and Damayan Migrant Workers Association, were part of the coalition that rallied and organized for six years to get the NYS legislation passed. A third of all non-citizen women in the U.S. were employed in domestic work in 2010, and over 90% of those workers were women of color.

Intersectional identities such as Black, immigrant, woman, and low-wage worker make these essential workers some of the most invisible and vulnerable workers in our country. Notes From the Storm (IPS, June 2020)

Domestic work reveals contradictions at the heart of the international migration of women workers: it propels women to migrate as entrepreneurial, risk-taking, decision-makers who became primary contributors to household incomes in their home country; and, at the same time, domestic work remains economically undervalued, stereotypically characterized by servility and subservience, and excluded from most formal global labor market reports.

For U.S. white women, between the Civil War and WWI, domestic work was often a transitional role between early adulthood and marriage. Throughout much of the 20th century, for U.S. black women, domestic work was an intergenerational, full-time occupation until the Civil Rights Act of 1964—when black women’s organizing resulted in a shift of this role to Filipino and Mexican immigrants. 

During May and June of 2020, over 800 black immigrant domestic workers in the U.S. were surveyed about how COVID-19 affected their lives. Workers interviewed were in New York City, Massachusetts, and Miami-Dade, Florida. Most respondents had more than one domestic job with different employers but each region identified its own dominant ‘type’ of worker. In NYC the majority of black immigrant domestic workers are nannies, providing private child care. In Miami-Dade they are housekeepers and cleaners, while in Massachusetts they are paid caregivers in the home. 

For black immigrant domestic workers in NYC, the findings are deeply disturbing:

  • Two-thirds of respondents either lost their jobs or have fewer hours and less pay since the pandemic.
  • Over 80% of undocumented domestic workers (and almost 30% of documented) have no health insurance; the same percentages of workers indicate they will not seek government support out of fear about their immigration status.
  • Over 75% who have jobs indicated their employers do not provide Personal Protective Equipment.
  • Two-thirds of undocumented domestic workers anticipate eviction or having utilities shut off in July, August, or September.

Over the next months, as domestic workers are called upon once more to take up work that is vital but historically undervalued, we must demand federal support for black domestic workers and their prioritization in the economic recovery efforts. Individual employers must take responsibility for protecting the health of workers they employ, providing the needed PPE, and avoiding convenient gig economy apps which will not direct money to the women they employ. 

WHAT CAN WE DO?

In collective struggle and mutual care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network

Follow @JHSolidarity on Facebook and twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN. 

JHISN Newsletter 07/02/2020

Posted on July 2, 2020 by - 2020, Black Lives Matter, Coronavirus, History, Immigration, Jackson Heights, News, Newsletter, Police Brutality, Politics, Racism, Your Rights, Your Voice

Dear friends,

Red, blue, and white are the proclaimed colors of this nation’s founding. The color of justice is yet to be invented — but it will always be indebted to black. As we approach a national and nationalist holiday this weekend, JHISN offers a newsletter in response to the nationwide demand for a profound reckoning with anti-Black racism and violence. We present three stories at the intersection of Black Lives Matter, the ongoing protests, struggles for immigrant justice, and policing. We ask that you put them to use! 

Newsletter highlights:

  • How Immigrant Politics Intersect with Black Lives Matter
  • “Defund the Police!” — More than a Rallying Cry
  • ICE/CBP/DHS Deployed Against Racial and Social Justice Movements 

1. Black Lives Matter and Immigrant Rights

Our call for Respect and Dignity doesn’t stop on immigrant issues…Now is the time to demand justice for all, but especially for Black lives…That means we must also work to check the anti-blackness within our own community, we must now all become actively anti-racist and ensure that our community stands in solidarity with Black Lives Matter. The Latinx community has benefitted from this long and generational fight for racial justice by our Black familia and we must acknowledge it and be thankful for their strength and courage through the centuries. —Make the Road Nevada

Immigrant rights groups were quick to join the Black Lives Matter uprising. Solidarity arises largely out of common experience with white supremacist oppression, enforced by violent policing and mass incarceration. For immigrant rights groups, the BLM rebellion also shines a spotlight once again on the political imperative of unity with the Black freedom movement–a movement which is leading the attack on the same racist, violent system that impacts working-class immigrants and immigrants of color. Such unity could not only help save Black lives, but also play a wider role in defeating white nationalism and building a coalition for broad progressive change.

There’s extensive overlap between the oppression of Black people and of working-class immigrants:

1. Many immigrants are Black. Black immigrants make up about 7.2% of the non-citizen population. In some cases, they faced anti-Black racism in their countries of origin. Now they face dual oppression in the US–as immigrants and as Black people. One organization in New York that fights for the rights of Black immigrants is African Communities Together, which wrote a moving facebook post embracing Black Lives Matter.

2. Immigrants and Black communities have common experiences with mass activism to resist police brutality and mass incarceration. For instance, Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM), the powerful immigrant rights organization based in Jackson Heights, emerged originally out of the militant protests that followed the police murder of Guinean immigrant Amadou Diallo in 1999.

3. Many immigrants have already endured police violence in their countries of origin; many also have experienced racist brutality at the hands of the US military in their countries of origin. Damayan Migrant Workers Association, which fights for low-wage Filipino workers in New York, connects the dots:

As Filipinos, we continue to suffer the long term consequences of colonization and plunder of our country by US corporations and its military-industrial complex that continues to fund the Duterte regime back home.

Where there is oppression, there will always be resistance and Black liberation movements have always stood alongside Filipinos in our shared anti-imperialist struggle. Damayan supports Black worker led movements and organizations in their calls to defund the police and end structural anti-Blackness and racism. We urge Filipinos to join the uprisings and be part of the historic moment for systemic change.  

4. Immigration police are being used to attack Black Lives Matter. At the same time, state and local police are repressing immigrants and collaborating with Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and ICE. (See related article below.)

Unity between immigrants and the Black movement isn’t automatic. Although white citizens are overwhelmingly responsible for structural racism in the US, some immigrants have also participated in anti-Black attacks. And some African Americans have adopted anti-immigrant positions. The Trump regime has certainly tried its best to turn African Americans and Latinx immigrants against each other.

But there are many factors favoring unity. Polls show that most Black people in the US have positive attitudes towards immigrants. Meanwhile, second-generation immigrants are actively combating anti-Black racism in their communities. Most immigrant rights forces are giving enthusiastic support to BLM. BLM even inspired a remarkable hunger strike in solidarity with BLM at an immigrant detention center in California.

Adhikaar, the local social justice organization based in the Nepali-speaking community, describes the necessity for unity in blunt terms: 

We call on our Nepali-speaking community to open our eyes to George Floyd’s death. In the same way an Asian police officer stood by and did nothing as George Floyd was killed, we too, must not remain silent and do nothing. Let’s remind ourselves that our struggle for human rights, as working-class immigrants, is directly tied to the struggle for Black liberation. It is more important than ever now that our communities speak up and take action.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

2. No Justice, No Peace // De-fund-the-Po-lice

“La policía y la migra
son la misma porquería!”
–street chant, everywhere

As we finish writing this newsletter, hundreds of New Yorkers will again sleep outside under the banner Occupy City Hall, an autonomous encampment in Lower Manhattan where thousands have gathered for more than a week to demand the Mayor and City Council defund the police. Mobilized by nationwide popular uprisings for Black Lives Matter and justice for George Floyd, Occupy City Hall calls for a $1 billion cut in a $6 billion NYPD budget. Activists demand that money be reallocated to support education, housing, mental health services, and community programs that serve black and brown communities across NYC. The City Council on July 1 approved a budget with a fake $1 billion ‘cut’, and protesters have refused to end the encampment.

Activist demands to defund the police—a rallying cry that has reached a national audience this summer—are not new. Collective movements to radically re-conceive and re-structure policing, and the very meaning of community safety, have been around for decades. Organized work to disband, demilitarize, abolish, or defund the police share one goal: a structural, permanent transformation in policing that goes far beyond reform or police re-training. 

Local immigrant justice groups from DRUM and Queens Neighborhood United (QNU) to Make the Road NY publicly support defunding the NYPD. Queens-based immigrant-led groups have long mobilized for de-carceral, de-criminalized approaches to community safety. DRUM led a campaign to close Rikers and defund local jails. For QNU, organizing against policing and the criminalization of immigrant communities is central to their founding mission.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

3. Homeland Security or Racist Persecution?

The actions of CBP and ICE-HSI may violate the Privacy Act of 1974 and threaten the exercise of First Amendment-protected activities including freedom of speech and association …ICE’s surveillance activity does not appear to be predicated upon any suspected violation of a law ICE enforces.

Center for Democracy and Technology, letter to DHS, May 2019

Last month New York State passed the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology (POST) Act, to ensure that state officials know the types of surveillance conducted on New Yorkers, and how that information is protected from federal agencies, including ICE. The POST Act was passed after reports of ICE working with the NYPD despite the city’s public stance of non-cooperation, and after the Department of Justice allowed the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to conduct covert surveillance of protests against the police murder of George Floyd. 

The DEA, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are all agencies within the sprawling Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with its $51 billion annual budget. In June, Black Lives Matter protests in 15 U.S. cities came under DHS surveillance, including the use of CBP drone technology, despite the protests having nothing to do with drug law enforcement or border ‘control.’  

The House Oversight Committee has demanded an explanation from DHS for the use of Homeland Security resources to intimidate and surveil peaceful U.S. protests. The committee also recently investigated “racist, sexist, and xenophobic comments made by CBP employees in secret Facebook groups” over the last year. Local groups like DRUM have called out, as far back as 2012, the widespread racial profiling and surveillance of working-class immigrants by DHS and other federal and local law enforcement agencies.

During the recent nationwide uprisings against anti-Black violence, the use of fusion centers–established after 9/11 to share ‘intelligence’ between local, state, tribal, territorial, and federal agencies–has been questioned as the DHS has treated peaceful protests as a potential national security threat. DHS has deployed “fusion” surveillance technologies for years to target social justice activist groups, lawyers, and journalists. Fortunately, many organizations filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, bringing attention to these unconstitutional practices:

  • The ACLU found that DHS targeted lawful protests and peaceful political groups from 2006-2009. 
  • In 2011, The Partnership for Civil Justice uncovered DHS surveillance of the Occupy movement. 
  • The Center for Constitutional Rights revealed that DHS monitored the Movement for Black Lives in July 2016. 
  • In June 2018, The Intercept established that DHS worked with a private security firm to monitor nearly 600 groups protesting against immigrant families separated while in DHS custody.

In June 2019, 100 organizations joined forces and wrote a letter to oppose DHS surveillance of activists, journalists, and lawyers “based on their association with migrants seeking asylum.” Their letter also noted that ICE and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) had created a spreadsheet of ‘anti-Trump’ protests in NYC during the summer of 2018, as the ‘Abolish ICE’ campaign gained visibility and the Trump regime continued its family separations at the southern border. Five days later Oregon Senator Josh Wyden sent a letter to Acting DHS Secretary McAleenan demanding confirmation about DHS activity and clarity on what was done with the information gathered.

The last decade reveals that challenges coming from both government and progressive groups to DHS’s unconstitutional overreach have not changed its behavior. The DHS was built from the same cultural perspectives as the existing police system which persecutes people of color and anti-racist mobilizations as potential threats. DHS should meet the same challenge for defunding and radical restructuring.   

WHAT CAN WE DO?

  • When protesting, follow the guidance in the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project’s Protest Toolkit.
  • Donate to the Center for Constitutional Rights and subscribe to their “Activist Files” podcast.
  • Read an in-depth analysis of government surveillance in the Emory Law Journal.
  • Read the Brennan Center’s report on the consequences of allowing surveillance programs to go unchecked.
  • Sign the ACLU petition demanding Amazon not use its facial recognition tools for government surveillance.

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network

Follow @JHSolidarity on facebook and twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN.