Report on the Meeting of February 21, 2009:
"Stand Up For Immigrant Rights In Your Community"
This event was organized by Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ BoSA, DC Jobs with Justice, and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. The meeting, open to all interested people, was hosted by Plymouth Congregational UCC.
After a song performed by two organizers in the day laborer movement in Virginia, opening remarks were made by Asantewaa Nkrumah-Ture, a member of the Board of Social Action of Plymouth CUCC and Reverend Graylan Hagler, Senior Minister of Plymouth CUCC.
Ruth Castel-Branco, National organizer for DC Jobs with Justice, acted as facilitator for the panel made up of Sarahi Uribe, national organizer for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, Arnoldo Borja, Day laborer organizer for the Immigrant Advocacy Program of the Virginia Legal Aid Justice Center, Javier Gonzalez, member of the DC Workers' Union, and Ramon Zepeda, Day laborer organizer for DC Jobs with Justice and the DC Workers' Union.
The principle subject of this meeting is the question of how to deal with the spread of the use by local communities of the 287(g) program.
The original enabling legislation for the 287(g) program was passed in 1996, the concept lay dormant until recently when anti-immigrant hate groups rediscovered the program and pushed for its use in towns, cities, and counties across the country. Essentially, the 287(g) program (named after the US Immigration code) allows for the unprecedented use of local law enforcement to carry out the duties formally pursued only by Federal Immigration agents (who used to be referred to as la Migra and now are called ICE.)
Jobs with Justice, in their program for the meeting says this about the program:
The 287g program is dangerous and ineffective for several reasons:
1) It leaches resources away from fighting and investigating real crimes.
2) Far from fighting crime, 287g erodes police authority by making immigrants fearful of reporting crimes.
3) 287g invariably leads to racial profiling.
4) The program bogs down our legal system by confusing criminal and civil laws. Being undocumented is a civil offense. 287g turns "undocumented" immigrant workers into criminals.
5) Employers have used deportations as a means to divide workers, break unions, and undermine worker organizing. [287g allows local police to deport workers without going through the due process ordinarily mandatory under Federal immigration law.]
Comments from workers at the meeting:
"Workers from various countries have to learn to trust in each other." You may be here from Mexico or Guatemala but the circumstances in the US are the same for both.
"Most of the people coming to the US, looking for work, are from rural areas. They are victims of the capitalist system at home and here in the US."
As the workers from Annandale sang in their song, "…a golden cage is still a cage."
Reverend Hagler stated that, "Every place belongs to each of us. There are no such things as borders. Our arms should be open." [This is as true to the union community as it is to the religious community.]
Abdul Kamus opened by reminding those present that we are all immigrants. Immigrant workers are far from their homes and families. They are here working as day laborers, in stores, and factories. They may have come here hoping to find freedom but they find themselves shackled in chains. He stated that undocumented workers should be free to work without fear, without being exploited, and should be free to visit their homes and return to work.
Sarahi Uribe continued:
The spread of the 287 (g) program has decentralized the immigration system. Enforcement can be different in each jurisdiction. It specifies who can rent, what languages can be spoken, and forces people to live in an underground society. 287 (g)
has also instigated an increase in hate crimes aimed at Latinos.
Over 200 communities are now participating in this program. Poorly trained police officers find themselves trying to enforce a complicated Federal Immigration law. 287 (g) is also a financial drain on local communities especially now in a period of economic crisis.
Jobs with Justice points out that police across the country are opposed to the 287 (g) program because it undermines community-policing efforts.
A particularly onerous example of the use of 287 (g) is taking place in Arizona by Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Arpaio recently marched 200 chained and shackled Hispanic workers through his town to a tent city in the desert. The tents are enclosed by an electrified fence. The prisoners receive no medical care and have been threatened to be placed at work on chain gangs if they "misbehave". Arpaio stated during an interview on the Lou Dobbs show, aired on CNN, that he is proud to be compared with the KKK.
A demonstration before the US Justice Department is planned for March 11th, during which petitions gathered demanding an investigation into Arpaio's treatment of his prisoners will be turned in to the new Attorney General Eric Holder.
Other comments at the meeting from those attending:
"Some say the immigration system is broken. What part of the System is not broken? Schools? Healthcare?"
"What is the US's role in driving immigration from Central America and around the world? What is the role of US Corporations?"
"People must remember that workers coming to the US have been living in an economic crisis in their home countries for years, before they came to the US."
Ramon Zepeda spoke to local issues here in the District of Columbia:
One issue is unpaid wages. Employers do not pay, pay with bad checks, or simply disappear on pay day. A Wage Theft campaign is being organized.
The campaign includes a workers rights education project, efforts to track down deadbeat employers, and efforts to stop the abuse by police of immigrant workers who simply want the pay that is owed them for their work.
While the District does not have a 287 (g) program, immigrants in the District live in fear of ICE raids.
Ramon experienced the effects of the use of police raids on immigrant workers in North Carolina during the Smithfield organizing drive. Police came into the Smithfield plant and dragged out immigrant workers for deportation. After that, workers would not come to work, they kept their children home from school, and their families were forced to live in fear, not even being able to seek medical attention in life and death situations.
Immigrant workers present at the meeting told how they came to the US seeking what they thought was the American Dream but now find themselves hungry, and in many cases jobless.
The organizers of this meeting hope to hold many more meetings like this one. The answers to the questions posed at this meeting, how to deal with 287 (g) programs, how to improve treatment of immigrant workers in our country—were not answered here—but it is clear that education and organization is critical.
Religious organizations and other charitable groups may approach the problem of immigrant workers in their way. US workers and their unions must reach out to these sisters and brothers--to join with their struggle for justice and fair treatment. "An injury to one is an injury to all" is not just a slogan. The dignity and the fate of all workers is involved here.
Respectfully submitted,
Bruce Wolf
Local 2 Social Justice Committee
