Tag: NYC

JHISN Newsletter 10/01/2022

Posted on October 1, 2022 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

When we are writing the newsletter, we often are imagining you reading it. This week, we are imagining that our quick dive into recent activities of local immigrant justice groups could motivate and inspire you. That our update on the latest twist in revisions to NY City Council district maps might help keep your eyes on the prize of electoral power for immigrant communities. And that our brief comparison of immigration courts in New York and Florida can deepen your understanding of what some officials have called the “human trafficking” of migrants by Florida’s governor. Read on!  

Newsletter highlights:
  1. Activities of local immigrant justice groups
  2. New City Council district maps contested
  3. New York vs. Florida immigration court outcomes

1. News from Local Immigrant Justice Groups: August–September

As always, multiple immigrant-led organizations are working creatively to provide services, leadership-building, and outreach to local immigrant communities. Here are a few of their most recent efforts:

  • Make the Road NY has relaunched its Deportation Defense Handbook, a comprehensive tool helping undocumented people to assert their rights and be empowered when it comes to law enforcement. 
  • New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) published a 13-page resource guide for immigrants. This toolkit is updated regularly based on changing laws and policies.
  • Make the Road and New York Immigration Coalition have been at the forefront of welcoming the migrants bussed in from Texas and Arizona. They’ve provided information about services and shelter, and distributed  Metrocards, prepaid phone cards, hygiene products, water, and food. In August, New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE) collected donations of clothes and hygiene products and will now be participating in the new NY Asylum Seekers Navigation Center on 49th Street in Manhattan. 
  • The 2020 Census necessitated changes to NY’s City Council Districts. Adhikaar and DRUM testified before the NY Redistricting Committee in opposition to proposed new City Council Districts 26, 27, and 31 that would divide the South Asian and Indo-Caribbean communities, lessening their political power. Instead, they are supporting the Unity Map. The next set of proposed maps were presented on September 22 and voted down (see below).
  • Chhaya is still fighting to get relief for families affected by Hurricane Ida in 2021, and is helping small businesses secure NY State Covid-19 Recovery Grants valued at up to $50,000. Also, on September 24, their street fair on 37th Avenue celebrated South Asian and Indo-Caribbean cultural heritage with music, food, and vendors and supplied valuable information on available services in the city.
  • Minkwon Center and DRUM Beats were very active in supplying information to voters during the June primaries. Minkwon is now campaigning to support the NY City Immigrant Voting Rights bill that will give DACA recipients and permanent residents the opportunity to vote in city elections.
  • Now that the worst of the pandemic has passed, Adhikaar and Minkwon Center have restarted their in-person English classes that were discontinued during the height of the pandemic. 
WHAT CAN WE DO?
  • If you are able, make a donation to any of the local immigrant activist and advocacy groups mentioned here–check their website for donation information!

2. Revised City Council District Maps Rejected

On Thursday, September 22, the NY Redistricting Commission held another public meeting to present its revised maps for the 51 City Council districts. Although the revisions incorporated many changes urged by 9500 public comments received during the Commission’s summer public hearings, the maps were rejected by a vote of 8 to 7. Please see our JHISN story of 08/06/22 on the importance to immigrant communities of the redistricting maps. 

Three notable changes to the original redistricting proposals were: 1) restoring District 26 as a Queens-only district by not including Roosevelt Island and part of the Upper East Side. Roosevelt Island would be part of Manhattan’s District 5; 2) reuniting in a single district Rochdale Village, the second largest co-op community in the city and largely home to Black homeowners; and 3) making Staten Island District 50 a crossover district by including a small part of Brooklyn.

Efforts were made to incorporate concerns that many immigrant communities (particularly South Asians) would be split into different districts and lack adequate representation on the Council. But the Commission says it is hampered by state law that only allows a 5% deviation in population between the most and least populated districts, and by the need to follow criteria set by the US Constitution, the federal Voting Rights Act, and the City Charter.

Dr. Lisa Handley, a prominent  Voting Rights Act expert, said the revised maps fulfilled the requirement that Blacks, Asians, and Hispanics would have the opportunity to elect their preferred candidates. But one reason for the “no” votes was that some Commissioners believed that Brooklyn and Bronx residents, and Dominican residents in Manhattan, would have their votes diluted by the new revisions to the maps. Mayor Adams was rumored to have asked his appointees to vote in opposition. 

The Commission is now required to make additional revisions before sending the maps back to the City Council. The next Commission meeting was Thursday, September 29, with time for further deliberations before the December 7 deadline for final maps.

3. New York and Florida—immigration courts in comparison

New York has had a one-way migrant connection to Florida since the 1970s, and 7% to 10% of people living in Florida were born in NY. There is a summer Jitney Bus line connecting the Hamptons with Florida; however, this summer it is the planes that Florida’s Governor DeSantis used to bus migrants North to sanctuary cities that have made headlines…prompting accusations that he may have violated the law. A review of immigration court outcomes in the two states gives us a picture of the systematic differences that shape the everyday lives of immigrants channeled through our current ‘injustice’ system. 

Going back over 20 years, Florida and New York have reviewed a similar number of deportation cases–each state handling between 500-600,000 proceedings. Some years NY has more cases than Florida, and sometimes it is the reverse. But New York consistently releases 7% more immigrants from custody than Florida, and Florida regularly detains 6% more people than New York. 

There are stark differences between how a New York and a Florida immigration court will rule in the cases that come before them. Overall, New York grants relief to 14% more immigrants than Florida, while Florida issues 8% more removal orders forcing immigrants to leave the country. Two crucial elements make the difference in case outcomes: 1) whether a person has legal representation and 2) how long they have been in the US.

Representation makes a difference in New York immigration courts: 40% of cases involving lawyers are granted relief or terminated (the person is released); without legal representation, 52% of cases end in removal orders. By comparison, in Florida, 35% of cases involving lawyers result in removal orders or ‘voluntary’ departure. So outcomes in Florida’s immigration courts, even with legal representation, are more likely to favor deportation over granting continuing residency in the US. The consequences for individuals and families coming before the court is huge. 

The best outcome is given to people who have been in New York for 1 to 2 years: 44% of them are granted a relief to stay in the country. At the other end of the spectrum, 48% of immigrants in Florida (who have been there for 3 to 4 years) face a most likely outcome of a removal order. For someone who has lived in the US for more than 5 years, immigration court rulings in Florida and New York have almost opposite outcomes: over 10% of those Florida cases will result in a removal order while the same (or a slightly higher) percentage of New York cases will result in a grant of relief and the ability to stay in the country. 

Florida processes half as many asylum cases as New York, but the outcomes follow a similar pattern. With legal representation, 64% of cases in New York are granted asylum while in Florida, even with representation, 75% of cases will be denied. Even without representation, New York will grant asylum to 24% more of their cases than does Florida.

So. Perhaps the best way for New York to respond to the DeSantis transport of migrants is to expedite the normal outcome of NY immigration court rulings.

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 08/20/2022

Posted on August 20, 2022 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

We bring you two stories this week that are especially close to our heart—the controversy over school funding, which affects nearly a million working-class children and teens in NYC; and the work of immigrant artists representing the everyday worlds of migration, resistance, and strength. As a few trees in our neighborhood already begin to turn color, we wish you joy and good company during these last sips of summer. And we thank you for another season of engagement with the JHISN newsletter.

Newsletter highlights:
  1. Education (In)Justice? NYC School Budget Cuts
  2. The Art of Immigration Struggles

1. Who Are the Clowns?

On Monday, July 11, several activists protesting deep cuts to the NYC public school budget were forcibly ejected from a Mayor Adams speech. “See, this is the clown,” the mayor quipped as they were dragged away. Among the people hustled from the room was a member of New Yorkers for Racially Just Public Schools, a social worker who just lost her school job, and an organizer with the immigrant justice group Make the Road New York. 

The truth is that lots of people have acted like clowns in this year’s battle over public school funding—but it wasn’t these protesters. Instead, it’s the mayor, the city council, and a state appeals court who have brought a cruel circus to town, juggling with peoples’ lives and performing a high-wire act with the future of the city’s working-class children.

Perhaps no public institution is as important to New York’s immigrant families as the New York City Department of Education. Public schools are where generation after generation of immigrants have entered this city’s civic life, learned new languages, forged lifetime bonds with their peers of all nationalities, and gained the knowledge and skills necessary for social mobility. More than half of NYC public school students come from immigrant families. Non-immigrant working-class families also depend heavily on the school system. And yet our city, flush with federal stimulus money and higher than expected tax receipts, is poised to make savage cuts to school budgets—while adding $400 million to the NYPD. Seventy-seven percent of schools stand to lose up to a million dollars each. (PS 69 in Jackson Heights is slated to lose $558,995.) These cuts will force layoffs of guidance counselors, librarians, and teachers, along with increased class size and cancellation of after-school programs, art and music classes, and much more.

The pretext for these cuts is a decrease in school enrollment caused by the pandemic. Part of the funding formula for specific schools is based on the number of students who attend. But this is disingenuous at best. Students can’t be expected to flood back into the schools unless the city rebuilds the system, which has been badly damaged by unavoidable COVID disruptions, teacher and staff resignations, and years of underfunding. As City Comptroller Brad Lander has made clear, the money to rebuild is readily available. The federal government sent $7 billion in pandemic aid for NYC schools; $4 billion of it is so far unspent.

 The City Council, donning its best clown suits, voted enthusiastically for the cuts, adopting the budget by a majority of 41 – 6. (Local Councilperson Tiffany Cabán, risking retaliation from the Speaker, was one of the few opposed.) Now, in the face of parent rage, the Council has changed its tune: members are claiming they were misled about the school budget and are demanding a do-over. The mayor insists on going ahead with the cuts and has been vigorously defending them in court. Schools Chancellor Banks says that Adams wants to “wean the schools off of the stimulus funding.” Known to be friendly to charter schools, Eric Adams doesn’t seem worried at all about the damage about to be done to regular public schools.

Throughout the battle over school funding, immigrant justice groups have helped lead angry protests. Local organizations DRUM and Make the Road (MTR) have been especially active in contesting the budget’s twisted priorities. Besides the July 11 protest during the Adams event, there have been rallies at City Hall, in Foley Square, and at schools such as our own PS 69. On June 17, demonstrators gathered outside the Jackson Heights school to decry “the city’s anti-student anti-community budget.” The People’s Plan coalition—made up of dozens of groups including DRUM, MTR, CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities, the NY Immigration Coalition, Sakhi, and MinKwon Center for Community Action—has done everything they can for months to focus public attention on the glaring inequities in the budget, especially its attack on working-class education.

As of this writing, the school budget cut juggernaut is still rolling along. Thanks to an August 9 ruling of the state appeals court, the legal challenges that parents initiated to stop school funding cuts are on hold until at least August 29—a week before school begins. Layoffs and cuts to school programming have already started. The Adams administration says it is “pleased” with the court’s decision.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

2. Immigration and Art in Parallel

Art and migration have always found a place of synergy. In previous newsletters, JHISN highlighted this synergy in: the Homeroom exhibit at MoMA PS1; Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya’s We Are More project; Paola Mendoza’s Immigrants Are Essential memorial work; the Billionaire Scroll designed by Ange Tran; and the parking lot mural, Somos La Luz, painted outside the Queens Museum of Art. 

Launched in 2016 just as Trump was inaugurated, the artist-led collective For Freedoms was established to examine the role of art in local, national, and global politics. In 2018 the group conducted its 50 State Initiative: artists created billboards in all 50 states bringing together political and artistic discourse; many of the works were created by or with immigrant artists or depicted immigrant themes. In 2020, For Freedoms collaborated with Blazay to create “They Are Us, Us Is Them,” a mural near the Queensboro bridge that reimagines Norman Rockwell’s “Freedom of Worship” with immigrant subjects and people of color.

This year, Detention Watch Network—a national coalition working to abolish immigration detention in the US—promoted art in activism by creating its first Artist in Residency program. For the inaugural year Miguel Lopez, a linoleum printmaker and community organizer based in Chicago, crafted a coloring zine based on the stories of ten incarcerated immigrants, whom he interviewed by phone. Each featured person is or has been detained in one of the #FirstTen detention centers targeted for abolition in DWN’s Communities Not Cages campaign.

“Immigrant detention should be abolished because incarcerating migrants will not end poverty in their home countries. Putting people in ankle shackles will not end the violence that they’re running away from. Digitally tracking and monitoring migrants will not stop the environmental disasters that capitalism created in their homelands. Immigrant detention, in all its forms, does nothing to support these families, it only exacerbates the harm they have endured.” —Miguel Lopez, Detention Watch Artist in Residency

Miguel’s zine celebrates what brings each person joy. In each piece, the detention facility in which they were incarcerated is being destroyed with objects that the subject uses in their work, or that give them happiness or strength. As a line art document, the viewer is invited to color between the lines and join in the process of destroying each detention center. 

RAICES in Texas also has an arts program but partners with groups to create plays, documentaries, artworks, books, and movies to bring awareness to situations faced by immigrants. In an April 2021 collaboration with BAM, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, a train station’s Arrivals and Departures board was adapted to show the incarceration start time and release time from detention, or their time of death in prison. In the summer of 2019, RAICES also famously installed a series of dummies in cages around NYC representing detained immigrant children, using audio recordings of conversations and sounds from border detention centers, to protest Trump’s family separation policy.

In March of this year, Brown University’s Watson Institute exhibited the letters, artwork, and objects created by people detained at Stewart Detention Center in Georgia. Called Breaking Out, the activist art project featured items that were pleas for help, clothes, or legal support—and offered depictions of everyday life in detention.

Art will continue to find synergies with the realities and needs of immigrants so long as incarceration, deportation, the separation of families, and the denial of human rights are met by creative struggles for social and economic justice. 

WHAT CAN WE DO?
  • View, self-print, and share Miguel Lopez’s zine, available in English and Spanish.
  • Creatively experiment with the For Freedom projects Justice Collaboration Tool or Trust Fall.
  • Check out the video about the making of a public mural by the art collective Amapolay and Peruvian artist Olinda Silvano.

 

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 07/23/2022

Posted on July 23, 2022 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

Small victories, temporary defeats – the local landscape of immigration politics is complicated. We bring you our newsletter in hopes it can help you navigate the terrain. Let’s celebrate with DRUM (Desis Rising Up and Moving), the recent decision by Queens DA Melanie Katz to drop all charges against Prakash Churaman, a young Queens resident and immigrant from Guyana falsely charged and held for six years at Rikers. DRUM, together with several other grassroots groups and Prakash himself, worked tirelessly to defeat the injustice of an incarceration system that disproportionately imprisons black and brown youth, including those who are innocent. Welcome home, Prakash.

And let’s note the recent defeat, for now, of a progressive move by the City Council to grant municipal voting rights to hundreds of thousands of immigrants with legal residence in NYC. A Republican judge from Staten Island, one of 324 elected judges composing the New York Supreme Court, just ruled that the new law violates the state Constitution. Activists who have worked for decades to secure noncitizen voting in NYC have vowed to appeal the ruling.

This week’s newsletter surveys a dystopian landscape of immigration politics at the global level, focusing on the history of the international asylum system, and the struggles today of migrants trying to navigate what’s left of it.

1. Asylum: A Human Right Under Attack

Over the last few decades, the world’s wealthiest nations, led by the US, have moved to shred the established global system of asylum and protections for refugees. Catering instead to racist and xenophobic domestic politics, they blatantly violate international law. “This system, once held up as a universal and legally binding obligation, is now treated as effectively voluntary,” writes Max Fisher. The practical repercussions of this change for the world’s hundred million plus refugees are staggering.

In the aftermath of World War II, which created approximately 60 million refugees, world governments met to establish unified asylum policies rooted in international law. The result was the 1951 Refugee Convention, later folded into the “1967 Protocol .” During the Cold War, the US, eager to be seen as a defender of refugees, promoted the Protocol and cemented it into national law as the US Refugee Act of 1980.

The Convention and Protocol require nations to provide asylum to anyone fleeing their home country because of persecution, or reasonable fear of persecution, on the basis of race, religion, nationality, political views, or membership in a particular social group. In conjunction with other international law, the Convention and Protocol extend asylum to refugees fleeing extreme danger from armed groups or because of civil strife. Although the right to asylum does not apply directly to economic or climate refugees, it may apply indirectly if they are endangered by social conflict in the wake of economic or climate catastrophes.

The Convention and Protocol, signed by 148 countries, demand that refugees be treated with dignity and respect. Two key provisions include the principle of “non-refoulement,” which prohibits the return of refugees to a country where they face serious threats to life or freedom; and the fundamental principle that asylum is a human right.  Refugees hold specific rights as well: the right not to be expelled (except under strictly defined conditions), the right not to be punished for illegal entry, the right to work, housing, education, and public assistance, the right to freedom of movement, and the right to obtain identity and travel documents. Any refugee seeking asylum must have their claim considered on its merits.

But today, wealthy countries go to cruel and elaborate lengths to deter asylum seekers, many of whom are fleeing social disasters caused by imperialism. Turning back desperate refugees at sea has become one increasingly common practice. This abuse was pioneered by the US, which began intercepting fleeing Haitians and Cubans in the 1990s. Using “international waters” as an excuse for denying asylum, the US imprisoned refugees in camps at Guantanamo or sent them to other countries. In a 21st-century version of this policy, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (who comes from a Cuban migrant family) made it clear to Haitians and Cubans that “if you take to the sea, you will not come to the United States.” The European Union directs similar harsh practices toward Arab and Central African refugees trying to cross the Mediterranean. It has negotiated agreements with Libya and Tunisia to intercept and detain migrants before they can reach land and request asylum.

International law is also ignored for refugees fleeing by land. Mexico has been enlisted to capture and deport migrants from Central America and other parts of the world before they get to the US border. At the border itself, many refugees are turned back by US Customs and Border Patrol on the grounds that they should have stayed in the first country they passed through, something generally not required by the Convention or Protocol. Central American, Haitian, and African migrants who apply for asylum are being illegally forced to wait in dangerous, unsanitary encampments in Mexico. The Trump administration created many new unlawful ways to deter asylum seekers, insisting that the government has the authority to “meter” the flow of refugees and to deny admittance because of Covid 19 using Title 42.

Britain recently announced that thousands of asylum applicants, mostly people of color, will be sent to Rwanda, a continent away. (This while immediately welcoming 100,000 refugees from Ukraine.) Other European governments send asylum seekers to Sudan and Libya, where they face uncertain futures. Greece is violently deporting asylum seekers to Turkey; Spain is confining refugees in Morocco. Israel is imprisoning and deporting African asylum seekers. Australia pays Pacific island nations to detain refugees who wish to make asylum claims, keeping them at arm’s length and isolated. As Laila Lalami summarizes: 

“Across the Global North, wealthy countries are outsourcing their border enforcement to poorer countries in exchange for economic, military or diplomatic support. Saddling poor countries with moral and legal responsibility, this collaboration strands refugees thousands of miles away from the safe havens they seek.”

It’s impossible to overstate the brutality and violence that accompanies this racist abandonment of international law and basic human rights. Desperate migrants are literally throwing themselves against the walls and fences put up by rich countries and their allies, and are being pushed back, beaten, gassed, and shot down in response. Refugees are drowning by the thousands, as the navies of rich countries refuse to rescue them. The camps where asylum-seekers are warehoused are often bleak, lacking basic services and even minimal safety. Millions of refugees languish in these camps for years or generations, with little or no prospect of asylum.

In recent days, the US Supreme Court has ruled that the Biden administration will finally be allowed to dismantle the “remain in Mexico” policy initiated by Trump–but only if they want to; it’s not illegal, they say. The administration also seems belatedly poised to end phony Title 42 Covid restrictions. These would be positive steps. And yet Biden has deported more than 25,000 Haitian asylum-seekers. In May alone, 36 deportation flights carried 4000 Haitians back to extreme danger. Only 12,000 refugees of all nationalities have been resettled this year in the US, despite an announced refugee ceiling of 125,000. The US, after its precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan, is rejecting 90% of Afghans seeking asylum. In other words, the carnage continues.

“If there were only one thing that could be expected from the Biden administration, it would be a more open, welcoming America after four years of his predecessor’s callous disregard for suffering abroad. We don’t have the hostile rhetoric from back then, but the numbers tell us we’re getting pretty much more of the same.”  —Marcela García, Boston Globe

WHAT CAN WE DO?
  • Take action with Human Rights First which provides free legal representation for asylum seekers and refugees in New York City.
  • Join Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project–with a membership of over 350,00 asylum seekers–to build legal, digital, and community support services.
  • Support Immigration Equality, a nationwide group promoting the rights of LGBTQ and HIV-positive immigrants and asylum-seekers.

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network (JHISN)

Featured image: Photo by Sandor Csudai, borders added, licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0.

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 07/09/2022

Posted on July 9, 2022 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

As we enter the thick of summer, we wish you all extra ease and an expanded sense of what’s possible. Our newsletter takes a look at the complicated situation of Dreamers and the tenth anniversary of DACA. And we offer a cautiously hopeful report on changing city policies around street vending in NYC. As we collectively re-dream what immigrant justice might feel like, we are grateful for your support of JHISN. Please put our newsletter to good use!

Newsletter highlights:
  1. Reflecting on DACA Ten Years In
  2. Street Vending Re-structured in NYC?

1. DACA – Still temporary after 10 years

In 2022, it is time to appreciate the good outcomes from ten years of DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, while recognizing the limitations that urgently need to be overcome. Congress failed to pass the DREAM ACT in 2010, refusing to legislate a path to citizenship for even a narrowly defined group of youth who came or were brought to the United States as children. As DACA recipient from Yonkers, Brian Aguilar Avila, commented, “They always say they have a plan, that congress has a plan, and that Trump had a plan, but it always dies.” 

Joana Toro created a photographic journey of DACA activism in Queens from 2012 to 2022, highlighting both Make the Road New York – which initiated a class action lawsuit to protect DACA-eligible immigrant youth – and the MinKwon Center in Flushing. One of MinKwon’s current Immigrant Justice Organizers, Woojung “Diana” Park, a DACA recipient, stated that being undocumented can make you more a bystander than an activist.  Even so, after the DREAM ACT failed to pass, it was undocumented youth that took action to influence Obama (who was deporting in greater numbers than any president before him) into signing the executive order creating DACA on June 15, 2012. Janet Napolitano, the former Homeland Security Secretary, said she did not expect the policy would still be in place 10 years later. 

Many DACA stories reveal that the eligibility to work without fear of deportation presented the opportunity to obtain a higher education. Although DACA youth were not eligible for state-provided financial aid and had to pay out-of-state tuition costs charged to international students, they could now work to obtain a degree. NY State, seven years after DACA began, passed the Jose Peralta Dream Act, giving undocumented students the ability to qualify for NY state aid for higher education.

Diana Pliego was living in South Carolina, where undocumented people were prohibited from attending public institutions to study. She had to apply to private institutions and, although she received a full-tuition scholarship to Columbia University, could not afford the additional housing expenses. But she and her DACA recipient siblings could now all work, and so could cover those costs. Pliego now works at the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) and was conflicted by the 10-year anniversary because, while DACA has changed lives for the better, the renewal process is problematic: “The past 10 years I’ve kind of had to live my life in two year increments, not knowing if one day someone is going to take this away from me and I won’t have any control over that decision.” 

DACA renewal, required every two years, is perhaps manageable for a college-age student, who can tackle life in short increments. But there are now more DACA recipients over the age of 36 than there are under the age of 20, and over 300,000 US children now have one parent who is a DACA recipient. Bruna Sollod notes, “Now that I’m a mom, now that I have a career that I really love, thinking in two year increments doesn’t work anymore.”

Family insecurity is an outcome of bipartisan political dysfunction and anti-immigrant sentiment in mainstream U.S. political discourse. The Trump administration failed, thanks to a court order, to end the DACA program – not because there were issues with the proposed termination but because the change was implemented by an improperly appointed acting secretary of Homeland Security. Ending DACA now would create another US government attack on immigrant families, just like separating families at the border, and would directly impact US citizen children. 

This week a Federal court in Louisiana heard testimony from New Jersey’s state solicitor urging 3 Republican-appointed judges to rule against a lawsuit brought by 9 Republican-led states claiming DACA was improperly created by the Obama administration. If the lawsuit is successful it would shut down the entire program based on administrative procedural rules not on the program’s value or purpose. Terminating DACA would ignore these economic benefits: 94 percent of the DACA-eligible population in the labor force are employed; 45,000 own their own business, and in 2015 working DACA recipients boosted local economies by over $655 million. It would set up the deportation of 542,000 DACA-eligible essential workers, 62,000 of whom work in health care, and almost half of which were employed on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic

As NILC stated, “DACA has served as a lifeline, but DACA recipients need lasting stability. Voters across the political spectrum overwhelmingly favor a permanent solution, and lawmakers have a mandate to deliver.” Surveys of the US public show consistently that three-quarters of the population are in favor of granting a path to citizenship for young people brought to the US illegally as children. Esder Chong, who received DACA at 15, and had experience at NILC as she worked towards her two Masters degrees, said, “If and when DACA is rescinded, we need a plan for the undocumented community at large. Congress has no plan. Immigrant rights organizations are not in agreement on what the plan should be.” Chong suggests giving up the idealistic “citizenship for all” solution and pushing instead for “a pathway to residency — a legal status for all” in order for people to stay in the country, to pursue education and a good life, and be able to work and contribute to local and national economies.

WHAT CAN WE DO?
  • Sign the NILC petition to Pass Permanent Protections for Immigrant Youth.
  • Attend the Off-Broadway show ¡Americano! about a DACA recipient who learned of his undocumented status when he tried to become a US Marine after the attacks of 9/11.
  • Retweet the four op-eds that United We Dream created with media company Popsugar to highlight personal stories of DACA.

2. Justice for Street Vendors in NYC

“Just let us work with dignity. We are immigrants, we’re not hurting anybody … We’re out working and trying to provide. All I want is a place to work safely.” –Maria Falcon, street vendor arrested April 2022 

Maria Falcon was born in Ecuador and now lives in Queens. For over ten years, she has worked selling goods from a street cart. On April 29, Maria was on an outdoor subway platform in Brooklyn selling mangoes and melons from a laundry cart when two NYPD officers handcuffed and arrested her. She spent two hours in a police station.  She was partially strip-searched for weapons and drugs, her cart and goods were confiscated, and she was ticketed and released for ‘unauthorized commercial activity.’ Her daughter’s video of the arrest went viral.

Maria’s story is a snapshot in the political panorama of NYC street vending. As an informal sector of the local economy, largely fueled by the work of immigrants and people of color, street vending is regulated through city permits for carts and trucks. NYC caps the total number of permits granted, creating a huge waitlist and an “underground black market” in permits. For years, immigrant justice groups like The Street Vendor Project, and elected officials like Jessica Ramos, have fought to decriminalize street vending and empower street vendors, establish a fair and equitable permit process, and end police harassment of vendors.

In a promising step forward, a report and set of recommendations developed by a new Street Vendor Advisory Board (SVAB) are being embraced by the City Council and Mayor Adams. The SVAB, created in 2021 by City Council mandate, aims to balance the interests of street vendors, small businesses, community organizations, and consumers. It also recognizes that the street vending ecosystem in New York is a vibrant part of neighborhood life and a vital support to the economy.  

In May, the Mayor publicly announced that the city will start implementing several SVAB recommendations including: repealing criminal liability for mobile food vendors; exploring the expansion of street vending opportunities in pedestrian plazas, city parking lots, and metered parking spots; and introducing business supports for street vendors through city agencies.

 Mohamed Atia, director of The Street Vendor Project and a member of the Street Vendor Advisory Board, sounded an optimistic note: 

“For centuries, street vendors have been an essential part of the fabric of New York City. From the Bronx to Queens, street vendors ensure under-resourced communities have access to fresh, affordable food, commercial corridors have diversity of business, and tourists get the iconic New York City experience. And now, for the first time ever, street vendors are stakeholders in deciding the future of the industry … We look forward to continuing to work with Mayor Adams and the City Council to modernize the vending system, ensuring all street vendors are permitted, and cutting the red tape so our city’s smallest business can truly thrive.”

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 1/8/2022

Posted on January 8, 2022 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

One of the many New Year’s celebrated in our neighborhood has just passed. This turning of the wheel of time also marks the return of Covid as an immediate and unequal threat. ‘How do we create solidarity during a global pandemic?’ JHISN asked in one of our first Covid-era newsletters in March 2020. At the start of this troubled new year, we want to honor all of our readers who have—in so many ways, seen and unseen—tried to answer that question with how you live, with what you love, with the kind of world you long to create.

Our newsletter looks at the mourning and mobilizing of NYC immigrant workers whose lives are literally on the line in the risky, low-wage business of food delivery. We then report on the most recent immigrant-led campaigns to protect essential workers in NY State, even as the visibility of their work starts to fade and their exclusion from government support continues.    

Newsletter highlights:

  1. NYC delivery workers mourn and organize
  2. Essential workers: still essential, still excluded

1. Deliveristas: Risking Death on Our Streets

In a more just city, in a happier time, immigrant food delivery workers would be in the mood for celebration. After all, after years of militant organizing, Los Deliveristas Unidos (LDU) and their allies have won a stunning victory, with the passage of new laws—effective starting this month—that finally give workers the use of restaurant bathrooms, minimum payments per trip, more disclosures about tips, and other crucial gains.

But bike delivery is a very dangerous job, and NYC deliveristas are still being killed and wounded in collisions and robberies. Half of all surveyed workers have been in an accident while working; more than half have been robbed or physically assaulted. Recent deaths within their ranks have hit deliveristas hard. And so satisfaction for progress made can only be mixed with grief, and with collective determination to keep organizing for better conditions.

Memorial for Adrian Coyotl De Los Santos, a Mexican immigrant and street vendor killed while riding his e-bike to work. Photo–Joseph Sciorra

In a December 18 Facebook post, the Jackson Heights-based group DRUM (Desis Rising Up and Moving) expressed sadness and anger about how New York treats the deaths of delivery workers: 

“On Thursday, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office released information about the arrest of the man who is charged with the death of Borkot Ullah—Delivery worker and DRUM member who was killed while making food deliveries this past July.

“Borkot was struck by the driver who ran the light while being chased by the police. The driver was speeding and is responsible for Borkot’s death. But it is also illegal for the NYPD to engage in high speed car chases within the city to prevent exactly these situations. There is still no word about the officers involved in the chase who are also to blame for Borkot’s tragic death….

“Why is there a difference between the speeding driver who killed Borkot (and is being prosecuted), the speeding driver who killed Xin Long Lin (not being prosecuted), and the speed chasing cops in Borkot’s case (also not being investigated or prosecuted)? Does the identity of the victim determine how the District Attorney will pursue a case?….

“What does justice look like for immigrants who are forced to leave their homelands and work long hours in unsafe conditions for corporations that treat them as disposable? Do we believe pursuing justice through a system that is defined by punishment and retribution is the way forward?

“We are mourning. Mourning the loss of Borkot Ullah and the loss of Xin Long Lin. We are hurting. Yet, in our hurt, we know that there has to be a better way.

“By coming together to encourage safety and strengthen the bond between each other, delivery workers are working to make sure no more workers die like this. They are building solidarity as Black, Latinx, South Asian, Arab, African, East Asian and other people of color to build collective power and change their conditions to fight for the future of all delivery workers.”

On December 31, more than 2,000 protesting members of Los Deliveristas Unidos rolled through the streets of Manhattan, fighting once again for better working conditions and pay. They are now bolstered by representation and legal support from service worker union SEIU Local 32BJ. One of the deliveristas’ main demands at the demonstration: more protected bike lanes.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

2. Does New York Still Care About Essential Workers?

In the early months of the pandemic, the term “essential workers” catapulted into popular consciousness. Disproportionately working-class, immigrant, and of color, essential workers were people who kept showing up for their jobs, while many of us worked remotely or remained locked down at home. Essential workers were people who got sick and died from Covid at higher rates because their labor conditions exposed them to higher risk. Essential workers were people whose labor was necessary to keep society going during a brutal pandemic, including workers in health care, transit, farm work, food production, delivery, sanitation, and grocery stores. Essential workers were unsung heroes who, in the throes of the Covid threat, society started to sing about.

What happened to our collective recognition of the food, care, and necessary production and services provided by essential workers? Almost two years into the pandemic, public consciousness—including a renewed class consciousness—of whose work is really essential seems to be fading. Even as the latest threat from a virulent Covid mutation once again puts essential workers, and their households, at greatest risk of exposure and sickness.

An estimated 74% of undocumented workers in the US are essential workers. The vast majority of them have been excluded from the government’s pandemic relief efforts, including enhanced unemployment benefits and stimulus payments. A recent analysis by the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy spotlights the discriminatory financial effects of this exclusion: a family of four with two US citizen breadwinners earning a combined annual income of $24,000, would receive $35,470 more in government pandemic benefits during 8 weeks of unemployment than a similar family with two US children and two undocumented working parents.  

In response to this punishing aid gap, New York’s essential and excluded workers got organized. Led by the Fund Excluded Workers Coalition (FEW), including Make the Road New York, immigrant activists won a historic $2.1 billion fund for excluded workers in the state budget last spring. But the fund ran out in just two months. Thousands of eligible workers in upstate and rural areas didn’t even have a chance to hear about the fund and to apply. An estimated 40,000 applicants were denied simply because the fund had been exhausted. Now immigrant activists are calling on Governor Hochul to dedicate $3 billion in additional state funds to fully address the pandemic aid gap for undocumented workers. 

A new mobilization organized by the FEW Coalition, #ExcludedNoMore, has also been launched to create a permanent statewide solution to systemic inequalities in unemployment insurance for immigrant workers and others who labor in low-wage, precarious industries. #ExcludedNoMore calls for a separate and parallel NY State unemployment insurance program that would serve domestic workers, street vendors, day laborers, and other workers historically excluded from unemployment compensation.

On New Year’s Eve, the FEW Coalition tweeted out, “Thousands were left behind with no relief this season,” asking members to light a candle in solidarity with excluded workers everywhere. As 2022 begins, New York’s eviction moratorium is ending, along with Biden’s child tax credit that helped millions of families, including immigrant households, keep children fed and pay the bills. How can we support essential workers in the ongoing struggle for economic justice? What essential lessons from an unforgiving pandemic must never be forgotten? 

WHAT CAN WE DO?

  • Share tweets from #FundExcludedWorkers calling for $3 billion in additional support.
  • Listen to and circulate the podcast with FEW coordinator Bianca Guerrero on the need for a permanent NYS unemployment plan for undocumented and other marginalized workers. 

 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 12/18/2021

Posted on December 18, 2021 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

The days grow short as the winter solstice approaches. At this darkest time of year, we celebrate the power of community and the promise of collective warmth in our immigrant neighborhood here in the heart of Queens. We celebrate the political promise of hundreds of thousands of immigrants now enfranchised to vote in local elections, as NYC joins over a dozen US communities where non-citizens have the right to vote.

In this issue, we offer you a local story of how the historic fight to fund excluded workers in New York State has been curated into a museum exhibition in Queens. And we report on the statewide campaign to end ICE detention of immigrants, in the context of the 20th-century criminalization of immigrants of color in the US.  

Newsletter highlights:

  1. ‘Nuevayorkinos: Essential and Excluded’ at PS1
  2. Shutting Down ICE Detention 

1. Immigrant Activism Meets Museum Space: Art & Politics @MoMA PS1

The room is sunny, spacious, and quiet. The white museum walls are adorned with colorful banners in Spanish, and photographs of immigrant activists taken last spring at Corona Plaza. In the middle of the room is a comfortable couch and chairs circled around a table with Spanish- and English-language books on immigration history and politics, including a neatly stacked pile of tales of resistance for children.

The exhibition in the “Homeroom,” a community-engagement space at MoMA PS1 in Queens, invites reflection: What is the place of community activism in a museum that contributes to gentrification and community displacement? How can we build popular memory of immigrant struggles using the tools of art and visual culture? Who is this exhibition created for, and who may be excluded by ticket price and social class?

PS1’s exhibition Nuevayorkinos: Essential and Excluded (on view through January 10, 2022) brings together the work of artist Djali Brown-Cepeda and local immigrant groups Make the Road NY, the Street Vendor Project, and NY Communities for Change. At the center of the exhibition is the historic struggle of the Fund for Excluded Workers, and their 23-day hunger strike in spring 2021 that culminated with an unprecedented victory: a $2.1 billion fund in NYS dedicated to immigrant workers excluded from federal programs of pandemic relief and emergency support.

In a corner of the exhibition, providing a rolling soundtrack, are two videos by Jose Armando Solis, filmed on Day 5 and on Day 17 of the hunger strike. As visitors wander in and out of the exhibition space, the voice of hunger striker Ana Ramirez cries out, over and over, “It is not just me but thousands of families—families that went to the bakery to bake the bread so that the rich can eat during this pandemic comfortably. I am forgotten, I am one of the excluded. We are house cleaners, construction workers, restaurant workers, retail workers, laundry workers, all of whom have worked hard for this nation…”

For those of you unfamiliar with the Fund for Excluded Workers, the hunger strike, or the cultural power and beauty of immigrant justice struggles, we encourage you to visit the exhibition. To not forget those who were systematically forgotten. For those of you who have participated in the victorious fight for essential and excluded workers – a fight that is ongoing – we honor your power and the possibility that this exhibition can help strengthen community support and solidarity. For the struggles ahead.

2. ‘Dignity Not Detention’: Decriminalizing Immigration 

“This hard-fought victory reflects the resilience and tenacity of our communities – and reaffirms that our vision of a world without detention is within reach.” –Tania Mattos, Freedom for Immigrants (August 2021)

Sustained activism on the part of immigrants, their families, and immigrant justice activists has succeeded in shutting down ICE detention in the state of New Jersey. The Hudson County Jail processed out its last immigrant prisoner in October. And the last 12 immigrant detainees in the Bergen County Jail were transferred out on November 12. Ending the use of these jails for immigrant detention was a result of militant protests outside the facilities, hunger strikes by prisoners, and an intense publicity and organizing campaign run by activists including the Abolish ICE NY-NJ coalition. 

Unfortunately, while some immigrants have been released, most of the New Jersey detainees have been transferred to New York State jails such as the Orange County Correctional Facility in Goshen and the Buffalo Service Processing Center in Batavia. This puts them hundreds of miles farther away from friends, family, and lawyers.

New York State activists hope to keep the anti-detention momentum going with the “Dignity Not Detention Act”  now making its way through the state legislature (it is currently in committee in both houses). The Act would require the termination of all existing ICE contracts for immigrant detention in public jails in New York, including the Goshen and Batavia facilities. Local groups including Centro Corona, DRUM, Queer Detainee Empowerment Project, NICE, and Street Vendors Project are supporters of the statewide mobilization for the Act. Similar legislation has already become law in Maryland, California, Washington, and Illinois. Activists in New Mexico launched their own Dignity Not Detention movement in 2019.

But as the ICE detainee transfers from Bergen County make clear, passing state-by-state laws isn’t a panacea. In fact, some immigrants may find themselves transferred even farther away from where they were arrested, to completely different parts of the country. They might also end up in brutal private for-profit jails –  still widely used for ICE detention, despite pledges by the Biden administration to eliminate them.

Nationally, ICE continues to detain tens of thousands of immigrants. Most of these people are simply waiting for their backed-up immigration hearings, which they could do without being jailed. The number of undocumented migrants imprisoned has increased 50% since Joe Biden took office. Conditions in the facilities are often brutal. When immigrants speak out about rampant abuses, they face severe retaliation and ongoing surveillance. 

The criminalization of migrants to the US began in the 1920s with a wave of reactionary anti-immigrant politics that led to a series of quotas, exclusions, and other restrictions on immigration, mainly targeting immigrants of color. In 1929, the Undesirable Aliens Act – authored by an avowed white supremacist and pro-lynching advocate – epitomized the hardening of immigration policing. Entering the US illegally–which had been processed as a civil complaint–suddenly became a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year’s imprisonment and a fine. Returning to the US after deportation was now defined as a felony, resulting in up to two years imprisonment and a $1,000 fine. The Act was intended specifically to control and regulate Mexican labor. In the years after the passage of this law, Mexicans made up as much as 99% of the newly-criminalized immigrants filling just-built federal prisons in El Paso, Tucson, and Los Angeles. (Today, Latinx immigrants still make up 92% of people prosecuted for illegal entry and re-entry to the US.)

The 1929 law was eventually updated by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. This legislation cut the sentences for crossing the border in half but continued to criminalize migrants through its notorious Sections 1325 and 1326. During periods when Mexican labor was in demand, immigrant detentions and prosecutions fell. But starting in 2005, as the “war on terror” ramped up during the Bush and Obama administrations, the federal government once again began prosecuting tens of thousands of migrants and jailing them until their cases could be heard. Donald Trump used Section 1325 as a basis for his infamous “zero tolerance” and family separation policies.

The most effective means of stopping the large-scale detention of immigrants would be a national law that overturns the criminalization of border crossing. (For example, by returning illegal border crossing to its previous status as a civil offense.)  Hundreds of immigrant justice groups have been demanding this kind of federal legislation for years, including local groups like DRUM, Adhikaar, and JHISN. However, decriminalization of border crossing is not included in the current Build Back Better draft legislation. A 2019 decriminalization proposal introduced by Representatives Pramila Jayapal and Jesus Chuy Garcia, has been stalled in Congress, despite the fact that it is endorsed by many immigrant justice groups and has 44 co-sponsors – all Democrats.

And so the end of immigrant detention in New Jersey must be seen as only one hopeful step in a long struggle. Local activists have turned their full attention to fighting against the abuses of immigrant detention in New York State, including punitive transfers, detainee mistreatment, and deportations. At each step, they raise the need for the Dignity Not Detention Act. 

Last Sunday, December 12, a small demonstration took place outside the Bergen County Jail. It commemorated the one-year anniversary of a violent clash with cops that led to the arrest of ten immigrant justice activists. Protesters carried signs saying “Releases Not Transfers,” “Close the Camps,” and “Abolish ICE.”  As Shamz Azanedo, one of the organizers, said, “We didn’t feel right just letting today pass. Today was a huge day last year, and we needed to be here together.”

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.