Category: Your Rights

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 10/24/2020

Posted on October 24, 2020 by - 2020, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Coronavirus, ICE, Immigration, News, Newsletter, Your Rights, Your Voice

Dear friends, 

Gratitude to all of our readers who have filled out our newsletter readership survey. If you have not yet responded, please fill out the brief survey today! It asks for your thoughts on our articles and gives you an opportunity to describe yourselves to us. We also continue our ‘Neighborhood Emergency!’ fundraising campaign, gathering direct donations to six local immigrant-led groups providing mutual aid, support, and solidarity during the pandemic. 

Please check out our fundraising webpage that links you directly to the donation page of each of the six organizations, and describes each group and the extraordinary work they are doing. To all of you who have already made donations, enormous thanks. Whatever you are able to afford can make a real, immediate difference to immigrant communities in Jackson Heights and beyond.

Two Focal Points for Immigrant Justice: Cancel Rent & Fund Excluded Workers

Immigrant rights groups in New York tend to be rooted in specific immigrant nationalities, which creates a diverse and complex web of activism in the city. Although they often work in coalition with others, these groups naturally concentrate on issues that impact their particular communities. 

But the pandemic has created an urgent common challenge: a struggle for basic survival that’s shared by all working-class immigrant communities. Some of the most immediate on-the-ground needs of individuals and families are being addressed by local groups through direct assistance and mutual aid. Meanwhile, on the level of city and state politics, the response by immigration activists to this common challenge seems to have converged around two key demands: a) rent cancelation, and b) a state fund to support immigrant workers who have been excluded from government coronavirus aid, financed by a tax on billionaires.

As newsletter readers are aware, the pandemic-induced housing emergency couldn’t be more dire. Rent was unaffordable before Covid-19. Things are much worse now. A recent study finds that 66% of renters in the US are concerned about being evicted and that over 20 million people are likely to have an eviction filing against them by January. An estimated 1.4 million renters in New York City are behind on their rent. Governor Cuomo keeps extending conditional, month by month moratoriums on evictions–the latest partial moratorium ends January 1. But back rent is piling up, creating impossible debt for working-class New Yorkers, most of whom are immigrants. Landlords are already filing for pre-pandemic and other types of evictions in Housing Court. Many are just waiting for the day the state moratorium ends to pounce on renters who fell behind during the pandemic.

Progressive lawmakers have tried to address the housing disaster. Federal legislation to cancel rent was proposed by Rep. Ilhan Omar. It was never taken up by the rest of Congress. In New York State, a proposed Rent and Mortgage Cancellation Act, introduced in July by Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou and Senator Julia Salazar, has gone nowhere. Another bill by NY Representative Michael Gianaris, sponsored by 21 state representatives, languished in the Judiciary Committee.

But the real pressure behind the demand for rent cancelation is coming from the grassroots. Notably, local immigrant justice groups have picked up and amplified the demand, including DRUM, Adhikaar, Make the Road New York,and Damayan. Chhaya, which is part of the United for Small Business NYC Coalition, advocates rent cancelation for small businesses. These organizations feature Cancel Rent in their demonstrations, social media, and publications. 

The Cancel Rent movement has generated street heat. On October 1, tenants and Cancel Rent activists dragged furniture onto Broadway, blocking the avenue near Park Place. And on October 16, the entrance to Brooklyn Housing Court was spray-foamed and barricaded with a bike lock. A communique, demanding “an immediate end to evictions and retroactive rent relief,” explained why:

New York City’s unhoused population has reached its highest level since the Great Depression…. However, eviction courts have been allowed to continue with proceedings….This is unconscionable and we demand that evictions end immediately. If our elected leaders won’t do it, then the People of New York will make sure it happens.

Back in April and May, there was a series of rent strikes in 57 New York buildings, demanding rent cancelation. Some of the strikes were in our neighborhood. Tenant activists are working hard to spread the word about rent strikes as a key tactic for keeping people in their homes. They argue that collective action by tenants is the only way to “force the establishment to capitulate.” NYCHA Rising is currently building a rent strike in public housing projects, focused mainly on the pain and suffering caused by unsafe and unhealthy conditions, made even worse by the pandemic. If the NY State eviction moratorium ends without rent cancelation, there will almost certainly be an increase in this kind of direct action by tenants.

A similar broad-based grassroots movement has gathered around the Fund Excluded Workers campaign. As with Cancel Rent, local immigrant rights organizations have converged around Fund Excluded Workers. Among the campaign endorsers are Adhikaar, Chhaya, DRUM, Make the Road, NICE, Street Vendor Project, the New York Taxi Worker Alliance–and JHISN. 

In Albany, Senator Jessica Ramos sponsored legislation for a tax on billionaires who have seen their wealth skyrocket during the pandemic. This tax money would be used to fund aid for essential workers and immigrants not included in federal relief programs. AOC and a whole list of other progressive politicians support this idea.

Governor Cuomo initially refused to consider a tax on billionaires, many of whom are his campaign contributors. But pressure is building, and he’s been forced to moderate his position, opening the door to the possibility of a tax on the wealthy. There have been loud demonstrations outside the governor’s residence–in one case, 150 New Yorkers formed a “bread line” in front of his mansion. Many other actions have been organized outside the offices of billionaires, and in other symbolic locations. A Fund Excluded Workers petition currently has 8,770 signatures, with a goal of 12,800.

At a time of emergency, with so many issues clamoring for attention, it’s noteworthy that these two campaigns–Cancel Rent and Fund Excluded Workers–have emerged as dual political focal points for several front line immigrant rights organizations in our neighborhood. As we evaluate where to put our support and energy in the middle of a difficult and complex political situation, following their lead may be just the right move. 

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 09/12/2020

Posted on September 12, 2020 by - 2020, Immigration, Jackson Heights, News, Newsletter, Refugee Crisis, Your Rights, Your Voice

Dear friends, 

Greetings to you, as late summer nights grow cool and as we approach the seventh month of living in pandemic times. Mutual Aid Disaster Relief (MADR), a group that promotes communities’ ability to collectively meet their own needs during a disaster, observes that a crisis generates love. MADR writes, simply, “We want that love to last.” How? How to sustain the new forms of collective care, the new connections, and community-based power that are being built during our ongoing crisis? How to make our solidarities solid? We want them to last.

Newsletter highlights:

  1. Title 42 and the Expulsion of MIgrants during the Pandemic
  2. Chhaya Fights for Immigrant Power   

1. ICE At Work in a Pandemic: Expulsions at the Southwest Border

As the nation stumbled toward Labor Day—with over 180,000 COVID deaths, Congress on vacation as federal emergency aid programs terminated, protesters killed by an armed militia member in the streets of Kenosha, California in flames due to climate change-induced wildfires, and a growing number of states and cities facing economic insolvency—the US government did successfully conduct one piece of business: a nationwide sweep of 2000 immigrants arrested by ICE. The operation included 83 ICE arrests in New York State, including undocumented immigrants targeted for the sole ‘crime’ of crossing the border.

The largest nationwide ICE raid carried out during the pandemic, the arrests join up with another bold move by ICE to keep America safe: the detention of migrant children in major hotel chains—Econo Lodge, Best Western, Hampton Inn—before expulsion from the US. Working in a “largely unregulated shadow system of detention and swift expulsions,” border security during the pandemic has been contracted out to a private company, MVM Inc., founded by three Secret Service agents in the 1970s and now under contract with ICE. At least 860 migrants, mostly children, have been held by ICE in hotel ‘detentions’ carried out by MVM. 

The detained children and families, some of them seeking asylum, and supposedly protected under national and international refugee and human rights laws, are on track to be expelled as ‘public health threats’ under a little-known power in the CDC public health code. Invoked in March 2020 by the Trump regime, Title 42 of the U.S. Code is being cynically deployed to permit the expulsion of anybody crossing the Mexico border, even if they seek asylum or refuge. Called “an unprecedented and unlawful invocation of the Public Health Service Act” by the ACLU, Title 42 has so far authorized over 147,000 expulsions by US Border Patrol at the US-Mexico border during the pandemic.

Starting in March, border agents were given explicit instruction to “return” migrants to Mexico without any of the legal proceedings or protections to which they are normally entitled. For the first time in the 40 years since the passage of the 1980 Refugee Act, people entering the US seeking refuge from harm in their country of origin are being returned, rapidly and without recourse, to that harm. Migrant children waiting to be expelled may find themselves housed at Econo Lodge or Quality Inn under the unregulated gaze of a private security and transport company run by ex-Secret Service agents. Welcome to the weaponization of CDC public health codes that, in the words of Human Rights First, are being wielded “as the ultimate tool to shut down the border to people seeking refuge.”

WHAT CAN WE DO?

2. Chhaya: Services, Tools, Fighting for Power

I believe everything starts with economic and housing justice. —Chhaya Executive Director Annetta Seecharan

Walking down 77th Street between Roosevelt and 37th Avenue, you’re likely to notice a second-floor office that’s a beehive of activity. Sometimes people even gather outside, socially-distanced, as they wait for their appointments. The office belongs to Chhaya, a multifaceted community organization based in Jackson Heights and Richmond Hill.

Chhaya Community Development Corporation “builds the power, housing stability and economic well-being of South Asians and Indo-Caribbean communities in New York City.” For over 20 years they’ve done this through an impressive range of programs and campaigns, led by dozens of paid staff and a small army of volunteers.

Chhaya insists that housing is a human right. They sponsor programs for first-time homebuyers, foreclosure prevention, and tenant advocacy. They formed the City’s first Bangladeshi Tenant Union. They oppose gentrification. And they are fighting for a series of tenant protection laws.

Chhaya has worked for many years to develop a trailblazing campaign to upgrade, rezone and legalize basement apartments—something that could be a big improvement for both low-income tenants and small landlords. (It’s estimated that Queens currently has tens of thousands of illicit basement apartments.) BASE (Basement Apartments Safe for Everyone) has evolved into a broad coalition. After years of struggle, and after winning the support of several progressive politicians, BASE was poised to unfold a key pilot program in East New York this year. Nine homeowners had already been approved for renovations, out of thousands who were eligible. However, city budget cuts caused by Covid-19 suddenly pulled the rug out from under the project. Advocates are now fighting to restore funding:

The virus is exposing the desperate need for safe spaces for vulnerable populations who need to socially distance. It’s now more important than ever to help modernize and bring up to code informal basement apartment units, where living conditions may put people at risk of disease transmission. —BASE and Coalition for Affordable Housing, April 2020

Housing is just one aspect of Chhaya’s work. They offer financial counseling, Lending Circles (which enable pooling of savings based on cultural traditions), financial education workshops, a small business program, and free tax preparation for community members. Chhaya is conducting a campaign to start “public banks”—community banks owned by the government and accountable to the people. 

Chhaya also fights for immigrant rights and opportunities. They are part of a growing coalition pushing for the extension of voting rights to all immigrants with legal status in New York. They provide free legal services for immigrants, ESOL classes, and a program known as Pragati, which “empowers South Asian and Indo-Caribbean cis-women, trans-women, and non-binary individuals who are looking to enter the workforce…or pursue new opportunities.” 

The coronavirus pandemic has forced Chhaya to redirect much of its activism. The group’s counselors continue to offer many services remotely. But as Annetta Seecharan says, “right now, we’ve pivoted to focusing on fundamental COVID-19 relief work like cash and food distribution. We’re also working hard to elevate the concerns of immigrant-led small businesses.” Chhaya is part of the Coalition for Excluded NYers, demanding funds for immigrants who were systematically left out of the federal stimulus package and enhanced unemployment insurance. They advocate suspending rent, mortgages and utility payments, and a full moratorium on evictions and foreclosures during the crisis. Chhaya partnered with local South Asian restaurants to deliver food to Elmhurst Hospital workers—resulting in a recent award for Small Business Program Manager Shrima Pandey from the Hospital’s Volunteer Department.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

  • Support Chhaya and the coalition behind One City, One Vote to extend municipal voting rights to immigrants
  • If you are financially able, consider donating to support Chhaya’s work.

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 08/29/2020

Posted on August 29, 2020 by - 2020, Black Lives Matter, Census, History, Immigration, Jackson Heights, News, Newsletter, Your Rights, Your Voice

Dear friends,

Jackson Heights continues to find itself challenged by intersecting life and death emergencies. Still, we dare to hope that our newsletter finds you in a moment of peace and a place of personal safety. 

When injustice rises, resistance is the only source of dignity. Every positive act, big or small, encourages the rest of us, and helps knit us into a community of struggle. This week, we reflect again on what it means to count, and to be counted.

Census: Fighting to be Counted

The millionaires who have fled New York City to their second or third homes will likely get themselves counted in this year’s census (though not necessarily as New Yorkers). And they may actually be counted more than once if they fill out their census forms in multiple states. Once again, New York turns to its immigrant communities for essential work — this time to stand up and be counted, and ensure that the 2020 Census gathers a full and accurate count of our population. 

The Constitution (Article 1, Section 2) requires that every ten years all U.S. residents, citizens and non-citizens alike, be counted for the purposes of fair political representation, and proportionate distribution of federal funding. In 2015, Census data were used to allocate over $675 billion in federal monies to state and local governments for health, housing, education, and infrastructure programs. The U.S. Census Bureau’s website celebrates the Constitutional design of the U.S. census as a turning point in world history. Instead of using the census for military conscription or tax collection, the Constitution transformed a tool of government into “a tool of political empowerment for the governed over their government.” This is not what is happening in 2020. 

The Trump administration’s failed push to include a citizenship question on the census survey, combined with fears of ICE and federal government surveillance, are certain to make already worried and hard-to-count immigrant populations even less comfortable about participating in the census. While the courts eventually ruled the ‘citizenship’ question to be illegal, its ugly purpose has already been served: to further discourage immigrants from census participation.

When asked how likely it is that answers to the census will be used to find people living in the US without documentation, 31.6 percent report it is extremely or very likely and 33.2 percent report it is somewhat likely…Among nonwhite and Hispanic adults and among adults in immigrant families, 40 percent or more are extremely or very concerned.   Urban Institute – Feb 2020

Census workers report often hearing concerns about the security of the data they collect. Historically, census data was used to seize the property and destroy the livelihood of US citizens and immigrants of Japanese origin, who were rounded up at gunpoint and forced into internment camps during World War II. After that national shame, the Census Bureau now follows policies and procedures that ensure their encrypted data cannot be used to locate individuals. The data is anonymized by converting it to simple counts with no identifiable information.

In early August, the Census Bureau announced suddenly that it would end the census count a full month earlier than its previously set deadline (October 30). Despite a public statement from four former Census Bureau directors warning that the new plan “will result in seriously incomplete enumerations in many areas across our country,” the all-important door-knocking efforts to ensure an accurate count of hard-to-reach populations will now end by September 30. There is only one month left “to try to reach people of color, immigrants, renters, rural residents and other members of historically undercounted groups who are not likely to fill out a census form on their own” (NPR, August 4, 2020). A past director of the 2000 census said publicly this week that the 2020 count might be so flawed that the Census Bureau will not want to release the data.

The Trump regime has also proposed–in a move that civil rights groups call blatantly unconstitutional–to eliminate all undocumented residents from the counts after census work is complete. Without notifying the Census Bureau Director, Trump declared that “undocumented immigrants would not be factored when drawing congressional district lines” [Associated Press]. While this move to weaponize the count to discount immigrants and boost congressional districts in favor of Republicans is unprecedented in U.S. history, as a practical matter “Mr. Trump’s order could not be carried out even were it legal, because no official tally of undocumented immigrants exists, and federal law bars the use of population estimates for reapportionment purposes” [NY Times]. But the threat remains, and court challenges are assured.

Concern is now widespread that New York state might lose another congressional seat due to a census undercount. There are even projections that New York State could lose two seats. To date, New York State has 5% fewer respondents than 10 years ago when we lost two congressional seats due to a low population count. As of this week, the city’s overall response rate sits at just 57%. Queens has the second-lowest rate of the five boroughs. Critical financial resources for schools, parks, public transport, and housing, will all be reduced if the 2020 count is not accurate. In Jackson Heights there is only one land tract (from 75th to 78th Street between Roosevelt and Northern) which has a response rate equal to or greater than that of 2010.

Neighborhood volunteers and local non-profit, community-based groups who work with immigrant populations in Queens, have stepped up their efforts to encourage as many people as possible to complete the census survey. Adhikaar, Make the Road NY, and Chhaya all joined an online Town Hall with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to promote completing the census. Local groups are often more successful than government agencies in encouraging people to respond. They are grassroots organizations, primarily immigrant-led, known and trusted to work for the benefit of the people we need to count.

Successfully persuading people to complete the census is less a question of overcoming reluctance or refusal, and more about raising people’s awareness of the benefits. Local volunteers also say they are “knocking doors and doing Census canvassing to break the fear and sense of isolation.” People are learning from Information sheets written in over a dozen languages about how school classroom sizes and hospital bed counts and improvements to roads and housing are all driven by the census counts. Tabling efforts by local and national electeds, plus a novel census subway series encouraging competition between city neighborhoods to increase their participation count, have recently helped to increase our response numbers. A series of rewards that people can win if they show they have completed the census has also encouraged more people to complete online.

There is still time for New Yorkers, and local folks in Central Queens, to stand up and be counted–and to encourage neighbors, co-workers, friends, and strangers to be counted!–before the census gathering period ends. 

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

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JHISN Newsletter 08/01/2020

Posted on August 1, 2020 by - 2020, Black Lives Matter, CBP, Census, citizenship, Coronavirus, History, Immigration, Jackson Heights, News, Newsletter, Politics, Public Charge, Refugee Crisis, Your Rights, Your Voice

Dear friends,

“We all must find a way to have the courage to get in trouble, to make good, necessary trouble,” John Lewis said. As we mourn his death this past week, we also bind his life and spirit to current struggles for racial justice. John Lewis faced down state violence and demanded voting rights for Black Americans. Today we honor his memory by collectively facing down state violence that is, again, armed and ready to make justice bleed. JHISN hopes that you might use the newsletter to make some good trouble this summer. Wherever you might be. Wherever it might be needed. 

Newsletter highlights:

  1. Border Patrol’s Long History of Violence
  2. Who Counts? Protecting the 2020 Census
  3. Community Art-Making as Activism

1. First They Came for the Migrants…

The brutality that Customs and Border Patrol paramilitaries have unleashed on protesters in Portland is shocking, but perhaps not entirely surprising.

As I see white mothers and mayors being teargassed on the streets Portland, Ore., one word keeps bubbling up from my bleeding heart: “Welcome.” Welcome to the world of secret police and nighttime raids. The world where you can be snatched by an unidentified officer in an unmarked van. The world where you get to see an attorney, maybe, after the government is done beating you. Welcome to the world as experienced by brown people with foreign-sounding names in this country. —Elie Mystal (The Nation, July 2020)

CBP has made headlines in recent years for its openly racist brutality at the Mexican border; for casually separating children from their parents; for concentration camps where migrants are tortured in hieleras–“ice boxes”–and locked in cages filled with Covid-19. At least 111 people have died at the hands of the Border Patrol since 2010. But this is only the most recent chapter of a murderous history that goes back generations. 

Established in 1924, during an earlier period of xenophobic frenzy, CBP became part of the new, sprawling Department of Homeland Security in 2002. It is one of the largest enforcement agencies in the world, fielding some 20,000 agents, with a budget of around $5 billion. By design, CBP has a loosely-defined mandate, which allows it to be used however the federal regime wants, including as a political police force.

Since its founding in the early 20th century, the U.S. Border Patrol has operated with near-complete impunity, arguably serving as the most politicized and abusive branch of federal law enforcement — even more so than the FBI during J. Edgar Hoover’s directorship. —Greg Grandin (The Intercept, January 2019) 

The Border Patrol operates outside clear borders, geographic or legal. Judges have affirmed that it can operate within 100 miles of any US border, including the coasts–a zone which encompasses 2 out of every 3 US residents. CBP has weaponized this bizarre definition of “the border” to establish intrusive checkpoints all over the country, to deploy “roving patrols” in sanctuary cities including New York, and to board trains and buses searching for people who “look undocumented.” (Protests by activists forced Greyhound Bus to deny CBP agents unrestricted access to the company’s buses last year.)

CBP’s mandate also has an international aspect. The Border Patrol Academy has trained counterinsurgency forces from a variety of overseas dictatorships. BORTAC, the paramilitary group leading the current repression in Portland, has been deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and throughout the Americas to carry out raids and beef up border forces.

Sometimes likened to an American SS, the Border Patrol has always welcomed white nationalists into its ranks, including Klansmen and neofascists. Beatings, rape, murder, racist abuse and sadistic torture have been common throughout Border Patrol history. In 2019, ProPublica exposed a secret Facebook group that had almost 9,500 Border Patrol members, including the current chief. Featuring endless racist jokes about migrant deaths, the group also mocked Democratic congresswomen–including AOC–who were investigating CBP abuses at the Mexican border. One poster encouraged agents to “throw a burrito at these bitches.” Thousands of abuse complaints have been lodged against CBP; these are routinely stonewalled and ignored. 

WHAT CAN WE DO?

2. 2020 Census and Trump’s Attempts at Immigrant Exclusion

Last weekend marked the 15th year since four immigrant women founded Adhikaar and began serving as social justice advocates for Nepali-speaking workers in our neighborhood. The organization has grown and thrived; Adhikaar currently provides direct relief for those impacted by COVID-19, promotes health justice, pushes for worker safety, and campaigns for a Billionaires’ Tax. All while encouraging immigrants to complete the 2020 census. 

Adhikaar has taken to the streets in Queens to educate the communities they serve about Congress’s constitutional responsibility to count all the people in the country every 10 years. To be counted is to take a stand against the fear-mongering used by Trump and his liegemen to dissuade people from participating in a process that determines congressional representation and appropriate distribution of federal resources. As Adhikaar, along with other local groups in the Queens Complete Count Committee, encourage immigrants to participate, the federal government is looking at other ways to discount them:

The Census Bureau has begun to examine and report on methodologies available to “provide information permitting the President…to carry out the policy” of “the exclusion of illegal aliens from the apportionment base”. —Steven Dillingham, Director of the Census Bureau, July 29, 2020

The 14th Amendment corrected the intentional racism of the original census charge, which excluded indigenous Americans and counted only three-fifths of all persons who were “not freemen or bound to service”. Trump’s push to eliminate immigrants from the census count was a nod back to the original wording in the Constitution; designed to redefine who counts as a person. The failed attempt to add a citizenship question to the census exacerbated an existing problem: historically, our national population has been undercounted, even more so in minority communities. People who fear that responding to the census might bring ICE or Border Patrol to their door are disincentivized to participate, as are historically marginalized groups who feel they do not benefit from the representation the census promises. 

In September, the Census Bureau will send a seventh mailing, including a paper questionnaire, to people in the population tracts with the lowest response rates. There are many in Queens. Despite extending the census deadline due to the pandemic, we are not yet even close to the response rates in 2010. In 2010 the overall NYC response was 62%, a full 14 points below the national average. This year the national response rate is almost 63% while NYC is only at 54%. When we drill down into specific neighborhoods the differences are dramatic: East Elmhurst is only at 43%; in Corona, the majority of tracts are below 50% (and 10 tracts are under 40%), while in 2010 there were only 6 tracts which had responses under 50%.  Although the rectangle between Roosevelt and Northern, from 76th to 86th streets, has a 68%+ response, all other areas of Jackson Heights average below 50%.

JHISN celebrates Adhikaar’s 15th birthday and honors their social media and text-banking outreach campaigns that have so far assisted over 4,300 people to complete the 2020 census. In the face of adversity and targeted exclusions, Adhikaar shows how to stand up and be counted. 

WHAT CAN WE DO?

3. Art as Activism

Art with organizing is all about building people’s power and finding strength in our communities; and art has always existed in our communities…that’s where our power lies.”  —Mahira Raihan, Arts & Cultural Justice Organizer, DRUM

The power of art and the power of organizing are intimate allies. As hundreds of thousands of people in the US, night after night, filled neighborhood streets with cries for justice for George Floyd, new art-making also poured into our public spaces. From community murals and street art to the collective performance of thousands ‘taking a knee’ together, the mobilization of political power has been inseparable from an outpouring of creative work.

While the huge, bright yellow street paintings spelling out ‘Black Lives Matter’ in Washington DC, and in front of NYC’s Trump Tower, have received international attention, more community-driven BLM street paintings designed in lush colors by local artists have also proliferated in Jackson, MI, in Cincinnati, OH, in Charlotte, NC, and in Seattle, WA. Foley Square is the site of a gorgeous multicolored Black Lives Matter street painting collaboratively designed by multiple artists; the word ‘Black’ was designed by artist and immigrant Tijay Mohammed, using Ghanaian fabric motifs and imagery. In Harlem and Bed-Stuy, painting the street with Black Lives Matter was a community event, with hundreds of local residents participating.

Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM) here in Queens is currently running a two-month Art to Activism program, mobilizing South Asian and Indo-Caribbean working-class youth to collaborate on a community-based art project. Aimed at deepening understandings of both police brutality and anti-blackness in South Asian-American communities, the project uses art-making as a catalyst to social change. Art to Activism builds on DRUM’s earlier Moving Art—Making Art for Our Movements program which created collective art “grounded in our communities’ experiences and dreams of liberation.” Visual art, theater, ‘zine-making, and poetry are all a regular part of DRUM’s organizing and cultural work.   

WHAT CAN WE DO?

  • Support DRUM’s Building Power & Safety through Solidarity campaign.
  • Purchase a copy of DRUM’s ‘zine created collectively in the Moving Art program.
  • Visit the Black Lives Matter street art in Harlem, Bed-Stuy, and Foley Square!
  • Work and play with local artists, neighbors, kids, and friends to design street art for immigrant justice on 34th Ave Open Streets.

Gratitude for your collective care in this moment of sustained and multiplying crises. Together we will continue to take strength from our solidarities, and our histories of creative resistance.

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.