Tag: AOC

JHISN Newsletter 11/16/2024

Posted on November 16, 2024 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends, 

Like many of you, we are caught in a nightmare interlude where our worst fears are not yet real but visible in a gathering storm. Trump and the MAGA movement’s capture of national power is a threat to so much—Constitutional protections, the power of truth, hard-won victories of anti-racism and feminism, Palestinian solidarity, economic justice, historical memory, our beloved communities. But nothing is more threatened right now than the lives of undocumented immigrants residing in the US and especially in New York City. Strengthening our practice of immigrant solidarity, and in the face of voting data showing a dramatic increase in established immigrant-citizens voting for a fascist president, will require collaboration and work. Please. Do not give up.

We offer an article on the pending court decision re: DACA recipients, affecting the lives of over 530,000 Dreamers. We then give our first take on the post-election US landscape of both dread and resistance. 

Newsletter highlights:
  1. DACA decision pending
  2. The votes are in: what next for immigrant politics?   

1. Conservative 5th Circuit Court May Decide Dreamers’ Fate

“DACA has always been only a temporary solution, and Congress must act to provide certainty.” —Jennie Murray, President and CEO of the National Immigration Forum

Over 300 protesters participated in the Home is Here Coalition’s action in New Orleans last month. On October 10, they gathered at the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals where judges listened to the latest arguments about the legality of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative. This was the 14th hearing that has been held to challenge this program; this one specifically challenged recent efforts by the Biden Administration to turn DACA into a federal regulation to protect it from future legal action.

Congress has repeatedly failed to pass laws related to undocumented US residents who have lived here since childhood. It could establish legal pathways to citizenship for young ‘Dreamers’ who have started careers, created families, bought homes, and built businesses in the US. But, for a dozen years, DACA has been the sole program that provided them any federal protection.

The US Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in United States vs. Texas determined that states cannot challenge the federal government’s authority to establish immigration priorities. However, the 5th Circuit Court has challenged that rule, when it prevented US Customs and Border Protection from removing the razor wire that the Texas National Guard placed on land and in the water to harm migrants along the Mexican border.

“In recent years, the 5th Circuit, which serves Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, has allowed extremist lower court judges to issue sweeping, politically fraught rulings that advance right-wing policy positions…[T]he court has used flimsy legal theories to overturn decades of precedent.“–Center for American Progress

While a majority of Americans want our leaders to create legislative security for Dreamers, many Republican states argue they have incurred damages and injuries from spending millions of dollars on DACA recipients. MALDEF, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, represented DACA recipients at the 5th Circuit court hearing and argued those allegations are not proven. 

There is no timeline by which the court must rule on these latest arguments. To some following this case, the court panel seemed divided. During the 71-minute discussion, there was speculation about whether Texas has legal standing to challenge the DACA program. One of the three judges cited briefs filed by 22 Democratic-led states detailing the economic benefits that program recipients had brought to their communities. “How could a single judge tell all 22 other states, who are so grateful for these people, that actually they’ve all got to leave the United States?” asked Judge Higginson. Despite this, people following the latest challenges to DACA anticipate the case will move to the Supreme Court no matter the outcome.

The fanatical and belligerent America First Legal (AFL) organization supports this latest legal attack on DACA. AFL was founded in 2021 by Stephen Miller, a hatemonger anti-immigration hard-liner, and soon-to-be deputy chief of policy in the next Trump administration, whose tactic is to demonize immigrants. Fortunately, there are organizations such as the President’s Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration that filed an amicus brief supporting MALDEF’s defense of DACA. Many New York universities and colleges signed on to the brief, noting how Dreamers have outperformed peers and made significant contributions to society. Map the Impact data shows how DACA-eligible individuals contribute billions to the US economy. Deporting DACA recipients would cost $60 billion and result in a $280 billion economic loss over the next decade. Map the Impact also notes that immigrants, who provide for our most vital healthcare needs, are twice as likely to work as home health aides, physicians, and surgeons.

And so we wait. The court may rule that DACA is legal. It may rule that Texas and other states have no injury and so cannot bring suit. It may agree with a prior 5th Circuit court ruling from 2023 which declared DACA unlawful. If that last possibility becomes true then it can only be hoped that the court will not order DACA to end suddenly. If DACA renewals are ended, then an estimated 1,000 DACA recipients would be forced out of their jobs every week for the next two years. It would disrupt not only DACA recipients, but their families, their workplaces, and their communities.

“We all should be clear-eyed about who and what is at stake in the DACA case. It goes beyond immigration policy and law and straight to the question of what type of country we aspire to. Hundreds of thousands of Dreamers have relied on DACA to become, quite literally, the embodiment of the American Dream.” – Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director, America’s Voice

WHAT CAN WE DO?

2. Heartbreak and Defiance 

“We have had an enormous setback in this election because the fascists won a lot of working-class support. ”  –Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

It will take some time to come to grips with all the implications of the MAGA takeover of the White House and Senate. But we already know that it means trouble for immigrants and asylum seekers. Immigrant justice organizations on the national and local levels are digging in for a long, hard fight. In the immediate aftermath of the election, many of them—including NICE, Make the Road New York, the National Day Laborer Network, Chhaya, and the New York Immigration Coalition—released statements on social media and in email blasts that combined heartbreak and defiance. In a November 7 email message to supporters, United We Dream summed up this widespread dual sentiment:

“I’m not going to lie, it’s going to be hard. We must unapologetically oppose Trump at every turn. But we’re not giving up. Home is here, and we’re here to stay.”

Since migration and the border have become central to US politics, grassroots immigrant justice groups will undoubtedly play a leading role in opposing the Trump/Vance administration’s fascist agenda. In this respect, NYC activism might serve as a model for the whole country. In fact, the resistance has already started locally. On November 9, a mass rally was held at Columbus Circle, sponsored by dozens of organizations.  

One striking feature of the recent election is that voter attitudes toward immigrants and refugees have hardened quickly and dramatically. According to the New York Times, the percentage of those who want the US to clamp down on immigration went from 28 percent in 2020 to 55 percent this July. As we have recently reported, many people also say they support Trump’s threat of mass deportations.

Even more disturbing is that many immigrants have come to share these views.  Exit polls show that large numbers of Latino and Asian voters in Queens and the Bronx backed Trump. In a “pronounced shift,” the Right’s rhetoric and false narratives about asylum seekers—including the slander that asylum seekers are criminals and economic parasites—have gained traction among more established immigrants. On Instagram, the National Day Laborer Network commented acerbically: “45% of the Latinos/as who voted, voted for Trump. 54% of the Latino males who voted, voted for Trump. Aligning with whiteness, especially if you are a dark skin Latino, to feel powerful is an illusion.”

Persistence and determination will certainly be crucial to the resistance. But to fight back effectively, progressive activists will have to find ways to re-establish mass support for immigration and asylum, including rebuilding unity among immigrants and refugees themselves.

“As an immigrant myself and an activist who lived through Trump’s first presidency, I have seen firsthand the impact of his policies. I also had, and continue to have, the privilege to witness how New Yorkers united to defend and advocate for our immigrant neighbors, families and friends.”  –Nilbia Coyote, Executive Director, New Immigrant Community Empowerment (email Nov.7)

WHAT CAN WE DO?

 

In solidarity and with collective care,
Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network (JHISN)

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 09/14/2024

Posted on September 14, 2024 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends, 

We spend time at each JHISN meeting discussing what topics to write about in our next newsletter—the work of local immigrant justice groups? Immigrant organizing and struggles at the state or national level? This week we decided to pull together a longer article around what is happening with the influx of new migrants–an estimated 210,000–who have arrived in New York City since spring 2022. We realized that if we were not sure what was happening, maybe you, our readers, would value an update, too. And we continue to ask ourselves, and you too, what can solidarity look like with tens of thousands of new New Yorkers trying to rebuild their lives in the face of extraordinary challenges? 

1. Update on Migrant Politics in NYC

The flow of migrants to NY has slowed because of President Biden’s stringent restrictions on asylum seekers. But politics in the city is still roiled by disputes over how to care for the 64,000 migrant children and adults enmeshed in a makeshift, underfunded emergency shelter system, and the tens of thousands more pushed out of the shelters, who are struggling with homelessness, bureaucracy, inadequate services, and lack of solidarity. While the Adams administration works to erode the Right to Shelter, imposing cruel new time limits for shelter stays and disrupting asylum seekers’ attempts to form survival communities, advocates are warning officials in NYC and Albany about immigrants’ dire precarity and loss of human rights. 

 In early 2024, NYC began—for the first time since historic Right to Shelter policies were put in place—to enforce 30-day eviction notices for single migrant adults, and 60-day eviction notices for some recently arrived migrant families sheltering in the city’s emergency housing system. But evictions were spared for all migrants staying in over 160 Department of Homeless Services (DHS) shelters, located largely in Manhattan and Queens and housing just over half of recent migrants.

 That all changed this past month when New York State gave the green light for the city to begin issuing 60-day eviction notices to any migrant family in DHS shelters except for those registered for public assistance, or who have successfully applied for asylum or Temporary Protective Status (TPS). Thousands of recent arrivals, including school-age children, are now threatened with displacement by the new emergency shelter policy (which does not affect non-migrant adults or families).

 In August the city also began conducting sweeps to take down migrant encampments that had grown up beneath an overpass in Brooklyn, and next to shelters from which people had been evicted, including outside the 3,000 person mega-shelter on Randall’s Island. Some people set up tents at dusk and take them down in the morning, others sleep in the open under blankets. These newly established communities feel cooperative and safer, according to participants; people pool their money to buy food that they share. A statement by the Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless criticized destruction of the encampments, saying: “These continued sweeps are cruel, confusing, and have a chilling effect on our clients and their willingness to seek City services to which they are entitled.”

The experience of recently arrived children is especially dire. The new DHS shelter evictions mean many school-age children are forced to change schools—losing friends, teachers, and any sense of steady community. Nearly 40,000 new migrant children have enrolled in NYC public schools since 2022. But far from declaring an emergency, NYC schools chancellor David C. Banks recently noted that the influx of new students “has been a godsend” for some schools, making up for recent dramatic enrollment declines and helping some schools to keep their doors open. “If you want to see New York City schools at their best,” Banks says, “look at how these teachers have responded to the migrant crisis. It’s incredible. They’ve partnered kids with other kids who are serving as buddies for them. They’ve got mentors from older grades.” With shelter evictions now on the table, some schools risk a sudden, mid-year loss of enrollment which threatens budgeting and teacher placement, along with the severe disruption to children’s lives and learning.

Evictions also introduce a Kafkaesque element to migrants’ struggles to gain work authorization, or pursue their legal cases for asylum and legal status: the cascading effects of lost or undelivered mail. With tens of thousands of newly arrived migrants staying in over 200 emergency shelters throughout the city, the makeshift mail rooms in shelter spaces are simply unable to effectively handle the flow of mail. Documents to apply for work authorization or Social Security numbers, notices to appear in immigration court—all move through the mail system and must be delivered and received on time. Shelter evictions have only intensified the problem. Migrants trying to retrieve mail from shelters they have been forced out of are often prohibited from re-entry, or told that they have no mail even when they have delivery receipts.

The wave of ongoing migrant evictions has not taken place without challenge. Brooklyn Council Member Shahana Hanif has sponsored a bill that would prohibit any city agency from limiting length of stay for anyone in city shelters or emergency housing. At the NY state level, similar legislation has been introduced.

NYC comptroller Brad Lander conducted an investigation into the 60-day Rule, concluding in May 2024 that the policy has been implemented haphazardly, and should end. Instead, the city should “implement a policy that genuinely coordinates temporary shelter, legal assistance toward immigration status and work authorization, workforce development that enables people to obtain work, and case management that enables people to achieve self-sufficiency.”

Activist groups joined together statewide over a year ago to form the NY SANE Coalition to protect the legal Right to Shelter—including Housing Justice For All, the Legal Aid Society, Coalition for the Homeless, and Win. They too have demanded the elimination of new shelter limits for asylum seekers, and an end to “this cruel practice that will leave families in the cold and uproot children from their classrooms.” A letter in May 2024 from health care workers to the mayor and the governor stated clearly: “We are reminded daily in our practice that stable shelter is absolutely necessary for human health and life….Over the past two years, we’ve seen firsthand how a lack of stable housing for migrants and unhoused New Yorkers has contributed to their systemic exclusion from life-saving healthcare…”

The Adams administration seems locked onto a policy of punitive, inhumane measures to discourage migrants from coming to NYC, or from succeeding if they make it here. What they have actually accomplished is making the city worse for all of us: generating unnecessary trauma, homelessness, and conflict. This is the wrong path. With some creativity and compassion, the current wave of immigrants could quickly become part of our communities and our workforces, invigorating and strengthening our city, as wave after wave of migrants has done before. New York should welcome our new neighbors and invest in their future—our future—instead of criminalizing and obstructing them.

WHAT CAN WE DO?
  • Follow NY SANE Coalition and their fight to roll back the Mayor’s shelter eviction policy.
  • Keep the pressure on our local Council Member, Shekar Krishnan, to help win passage of Int. No. 210, the bill to protect migrants from shelter eviction.

 

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network (JHISN)

 

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 06/11/2022

Posted on June 11, 2022 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

As the first official day of summer approaches, with stunning urban sunsets and the roving jingle of the ice cream truck, we take a local look at two immigration stories. In Central Queens, the community power of Filipinos is celebrated with a new street name. And we explore the shifting grounds of immigrants’ electoral voice in the wake of redistricting in New York State, together with the legalization of immigrant voting in municipal elections and the impending redistricting in New York City.

For lively, engaging podcasts for your summer walk, check out the recent series produced by the Queens Memory Project. Season 3 of their award-winning series presents Queens’ diverse Asian American communities “in their own voice.” And language! Eight bilingual podcasts include Bangla, Hindi, Korean, Mandarin, Nepali, Tagalog, Tibetan, and Urdu. Even if your only language is English, take the opportunity to hear the music and rhythms of these many languages of our neighborhood.

Newsletter highlights:
  1. Woodside recognizes Filipino community
  2. Redistricting, electoral politics, & immigrant voting power in NYC

1. “Little Manila Avenue” Coming to Queens

On June 12, 2020, a beautiful mural “Mabuhay!” ( “to life”) honoring Filipino health care workers was unveiled on 69th Street and Roosevelt Avenue, in the heart of the Woodside neighborhood called Little Manila. Tomorrow, June 12, 2022, at noon, a new street sign at the southwest corner of 70th Street and Roosevelt will co-name the street as “Little Manila Avenue.”

The co-naming represents the success of an online petition campaign, launched after the mural was unveiled, to officially recognize the Filipino community. The law authorizing the name change was sponsored by former council member Jimmy Van Bramer and passed by the city council on December 15, 2021. June 12 is significant as Philippine Independence Day, celebrating the end of Spanish colonialism in1898.

Filipinos are the fourth largest Asian group in New York City, with over half living here in Queens. Filipinos are renowned as health care workers and caregivers. Large numbers of Filipinos began to settle in Woodside in the 1970s when Filipino nurses arrived to fill a shortage of nurses in the US.

Little Manila—stretching across Roosevelt Avenue from 63rd Street to 71st Street—features many restaurants specializing in Filipino food as well as the Phil-Am Food Mart that attracts customers from many surrounding states. 

Currently, Little Manila is split among three State Assembly Districts and two State Senate districts. Residents would prefer to be in a single assembly district with one representative offering a strong, unified voice to counter real estate development that threatens to transform their neighborhood. Even though Queens has been redistricted, Little Manila will for now remain separated into different assembly and senate districts.

WHAT CAN WE DO?
  •  Listen (in English or Tagalog) to Queens Memory Project’s Podcast “Our Major Minor Voices” Season 3 Episode 6 to learn about another art project for the area, and one nurse’s recollection of her work during the Covid pandemic.
  • Take a walking tour of Little Manila and visit the Phil-Am Food Mart or Amazing Grace Restaurant and Bakery.

 

2. Immigrants central to electoral changes

Big changes are on the way for New York’s electoral system, and some will have important implications for immigrant voting power. The 2020 census has set off a cascade of redistricting, which will directly and indirectly affect the influence of various immigrant communities on national, state, and local elections. In addition, immigrants with legal status will be able to vote in NYC elections starting in 2023. The impact of both of these new developments depends substantially on how politicians and activists adjust to the rapidly-growing population of Asian Americans in the state and NYC.

The state legislature’s recent redistricting uproar, which resulted in district lines drawn at the last minute by a judge-appointed special master, is forcing candidates for 2022 and 2024 elections, including those in Queens, to scramble to figure out where they belong in the new geography and demographics of an altered electoral map. For instance, State Senator John Liu is moving his campaign from District 11 to the modified District 16, which will now include his home and much of his political base in Flushing. Rana Abdelhamid, an Astoria-based progressive from an Egyptian immigrant family who aimed to bring more immigrant and working-class voters into the electoral process, is withdrawing from the race for the 12th Congressional District because of the new map. “My community and I were cut out of our district,” she says.

The new map makes a significant change to Congressional district borders in our own community. Woodside and most of Jackson Heights will be subtracted from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s current Congressional District 14. The removed neighborhoods include many of the Asian American voters in her district—mostly immigrants from South Asia, the Philippines, and Tibet. Those areas will now be part of Congressional District 6, currently represented by Grace Meng. CD 6, which includes Chinatowns in both Flushing and Elmhurst, already has a large bloc of East Asian voters. How this consolidation of Asian American voters will affect future elections in Queens is difficult to predict.

Over the next year or so, the New York City Council will be redrawing its own 51 districts as well. The city’s population grew by nearly 600,000 people from 2010 to 2020; Asian American/Pacific Islanders made up the majority of that increase. Asian political representation is certain to be a major consideration in adjusting Council district lines. Significant Latino population increases in the Bronx and Brooklyn will also have to be taken into account. A Districting Commission (made up of seven mayoral appointees plus five commissioners chosen by the majority Democrats and three by the Republicans) will decide on district borders. The Commission has started holding hearings and drawing preliminary maps.

In terms of NYC elections, the biggest transformation is likely to be the impending rollout of non-citizen voting which, assuming it survives a court challenge, will begin in 2023. An estimated 800,000 immigrants with green cards or other legal status will become eligible to vote. Registration is scheduled to begin this December. If immigrant communities sign up to vote in big numbers, it could dramatically reshape city elections. Between the infusion of new immigrant votes and the reshuffling caused by redistricting, immigrants may soon play a much bigger role in New York electoral politics.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

 

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network (JHISN)

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 03/19/2022

Posted on March 19, 2022 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

​​Two years ago this month, Covid-19 hit the US. Our neighborhood in Central Queens quickly became a deadly epicenter of the global pandemic. For some of us that time may seem far away or a bit unreal; for others of us, including those who lost beloveds or who continue to suffer Covid’s lingering grip, the story has not ended. Memories remain vivid and losses are still grieved.

Our newsletter highlights the ongoing struggle for economic justice as the immigrant-led fight for pandemic aid marches straight to the steps of the state capitol. And we take a careful look at the inequalities and structural racism that shape how refugees are welcomed—or not—as millions of Ukrainians join the radical displacement and dispossession experienced by tens of millions fleeing Central Africa, the Middle East, Central America, and the Caribbean.

Newsletter highlights:
  1. #FundExcludedWorkers Now!
  2. Refugee Politics: Who is Welcome? Who Is Excluded?

1. #ExcludedNoMore Launches ‘March to Albany’

“This International Working Women’s Month, how will New York state care for domestic workers, restaurant workers, home health aids, retail workers, grandmothers, mothers, aunts, daughters, sisters, wives? …. The pandemic has shown us time and again that when a crisis hits, it’s our communities who fall through the gaps in the social safety net.” – DRUM (Desis Rising Up and Moving), 03-14-22

For those of us included in the pandemic social safety net who benefitted from supplemental unemployment insurance, stimulus checks, or remote work from home, the distance between NYC and Albany can be measured in hours or the price of an Amtrak ticket. For undocumented immigrants systematically excluded from the social safety net, the 150-mile distance to Albany is measured this month in activist days and a strategic itinerary through the districts of key state leaders. ‘March to Albany,’ organized by the Fund Excluded Workers (FEW) coalition, kicked off on March 15 in Manhattan with a march to the Bronx, and a demand for $3 billion in this year’s state budget for immigrant New Yorkers left out of pandemic aid.  

FEW won a historic victory a year ago when their 23-day hunger strike helped secure a $2.1 billion Excluded Workers Fund in the NYS budget to assist eligible immigrants, many of whom had not received a single dollar in federal or state pandemic support. The fund was life-changing for tens of thousands of New Yorkers who successfully applied, including thousands of residents in Queens.

But the fund ran out of money barely two months after it launched in August 2021, with an estimated 95,000 applications still pending. Tens of thousands of people never even had a chance to apply before the fund closed down. Activists report that up to 175,000 immigrants remain effectively ‘excluded’ from funding for which they are eligible, and which they desperately need.  

Immigrant justice groups, led by FEW, are mobilizing to right that wrong by securing billions for the Excluded Workers Fund in this year’s state budget. On March 8, hundreds of Deliveristas on bikes and scooters, along with domestic workers, street vendors, house cleaners, and taxi drivers, stopped traffic on the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges, rallying to demand an additional $3 billion for the Fund, and a permanent unemployment insurance program for undocumented immigrant workers in NYS.  

With less than three weeks to go until the state budget is finalized, ‘March to Albany’ is routing their #ExcludedNoMore campaign through the home district of Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, as part of a rolling cascade of actions around the state. On March 23, they will march into Albany to bear witness to the contributions, and needs, of essential and excluded workers. JHISN is one of over 120 organizations–along with local groups DRUM, Chhaya CDC, Adhikaar, and Damayan Migrant Workers–that endorse the Fund Excluded Workers (FEW) campaign. Join us in the urgent fight for budget justice in Albany! 

WHAT CAN WE DO?

2. Equity and Justice for All Refugees

“I think the world is watching and many immigrants and refugees are watching. And how the world treats…Ukrainian refugees should be how we are treating all refugees in the United States.” –Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, The Rachel Maddow Show, 03-01-22 

As of March 14, more than 3 million Ukrainians have fled the brutal Russian attack on their country. The EU says that the invasion could end up displacing over 7 million people in “[w]hat could become the largest humanitarian crisis on our European continent in many, many years.” It has asked all member states to grant asylum to Ukrainian refugees for up to three years.

European countries are eagerly stepping up to address the crisis. News media are full of heartwarming stories: “Moldovans Open Hearts and Homes to Refugees,” “Britain Announces ‘Homes for Ukraine’ Program to Sponsor Refugees,” “Berliners Open Their Hearts and Homes to Those Fleeing Ukraine Conflict,” “Map Showing Number of Polish People Willing to Accept Ukrainian Refugees in Their Homes Is Giving Everyone Hope”—a seemingly endless outpouring of sympathy and, even more important, material assistance. 

What we are not hearing is familiar complaints about refugees “burdening” the receiving states; instead, only humanitarian concern and a willingness to share. This is inspiring; it is exactly how a global community should react to a vulnerable population running for their lives. So why does this response seem to only apply to white people?

Over the past 11 years, 6.8 million Syrians have become refugees and asylum-seekers from a war just as bloody as Ukraine’s.  Except for Germany and Sweden, most countries in the West have refused to shelter them in significant numbers. Millions of refugees have tried to enter Europe because of deadly violence in Afghanistan and Iraq. They have faced “a backlash of political nativism” in the same countries that now welcome Ukrainians.

“The military in Hungary is allowing in Ukrainians through sections of the border that had been closed. Hungary’s hard-line prime minister, Viktor Orban, has previously called refugees a threat to his country, and his government has been accused of caging and starving them.

“Farther West, Chancellor Karl Nehammer of Austria said that ‘of course we will take in refugees if necessary’ in light of the crisis in Ukraine. As recently as last fall, when he was serving as interior minister, Mr. Nehammer sought to block some Afghans seeking refuge after the Taliban overthrew the government in Kabul.

“‘It’s different in Ukraine than in countries like Afghanistan,’ he was quoted as saying during an interview on a national TV program. ‘We’re talking about neighborhood help.’” –New York Times, 02-26-22

Horrifying stories are emerging of Polish border guards assaulting and ejecting refugees from Africa, while simultaneously welcoming white Ukrainians. The Ukrainian military has also reportedly discriminated against non-white refugees, sending them to the back of the line in train stations and at border posts as they try to flee the war.

And then there is the US. The Biden administration and Congress are urgently discussing how to help Ukrainian refugees. Almost overnight, billions of dollars have been allocated to help them get shelter and services in Europe. The president says “we will welcome Ukrainian refugees with open arms” if they come to our borders. He has already extended Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Ukrainian immigrants now in the US. Some Ukrainians are apparently being allowed to cross freely into the US from Mexico. This is admirable. 

But this is the same government that turned away over 1,100,000 asylum-seekers last year, using the phony pretext of Covid-19. The same government that forced tens of thousands of Haitian asylum seekers onto deportation planes, back into the deadly chaos they had risked their lives to escape. The same government that illegally ejected hundreds of thousands of refugees from Central America who are fleeing the violence, destitution, and climate disasters caused in large part by the US itself. These refugees now face vicious abuse while stranded in Mexico. 

Will the massive upwelling of support for imperiled Ukrainians transform the poisonous discourse about refugees in Europe? In the US, will the widespread racism towards refugees of color, thrown into stark relief by the Ukraine crisis, finally give way to a fuller respect for universal human rights? We can hope so. And we can fight to make that happen.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

 

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network (JHISN)

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

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AOC Town Hall in Queens

Posted on July 23, 2019 by - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, ICE, Immigration, News

Thank you to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for the Immigration Town Hall, held on Saturday, July 20th, in Corona. Thanks, also, to Amaha Kassa, Jennifer Sun, Roksana Mun, Yatziri Tovar, Lupito Romero and everyone else who contributed to this amazing event.