The Department of Homeland Security is coming out with regulations that would mandate that all Americans have a standarized (e.g. national) drivers license or state ID in order to go into any federal building or fly in a commercial airline. This would mean that the government would be able to easily track Americans, and would violate our most basic right “to be left alone”. Please call your congressman to tell them you oppose the national ID (for those in San Leandor, Pete Stark already opposes it), but also turn in your comments against the standarized ID to the Department of Homeland Security. The url below – an ACLU action – tells you how to go about it on easy steps. Thanks so much!
American Civil Liberties Union:
Category: Do (Page 2 of 3)
(from human rights first)
Remember when only villains on TV tortured?
Today, American heroes on TV dramas like “24” and “Lost”
routinely use torture to save the day.
These shows are intended as entertainment. But their impact is
anything but fictional: Junior soldiers have imitated the
interrogation techniques they have seen on television – on the
notion that they work.
Stand in solidarity with all immigrants, documented and undocumented
The IAC urges you to support the case of Elvira Arellano. Elvira is an undocumented worker who is taking a heroic stand against deportations and fighting for her rights. She is a native of Michoacán, Mexico who came to the U.S. like many of the other 12 million undocumented in this country, in search of work and a better life.
I’m posting this letter that has been forwarded to me. I think that what is wonderful about the Immigrants rights movement that has started is that it needs not be just latino or immigrant. This is a movement that can really serve as the catalyst for unifying the underclasses of American society. This letter was written pre-May 1st but the need for support and action is still there.
—
For May Day and Beyond: White People Step up for Immigrant Rights!
In the past month, five million people, mostly immigrants of color, have
mobilized for justice and are making history, flooding the streets in
unprecedented numbers. Meanwhile, the most visible participation by white
people is coming from the racist and right wing leaders who are defining
and dominating the debate in the Federal government and in the news, radio
and opinion pages. Where are the voices of anti-racist white people in
this crucial moment, when the worst anti-immigrant legislation in decades
is still poised to drop?
We, white people who believe in justice and ending racism, have a
responsibility and a historic opportunity to stand with immigrant
communities and unite behind their demands. As white people, most of us
with U.S. citizenship, we call out to our white communities to take to the
streets for immigrant rights. We must demonstrate that the rightwing
racists, from the Minutemen to in the Congress, do not represent us!
Anyone who has experienced this month’s electrifying, grassroots explosion
feels the power and excitement growing. Working-class immigrants, with
their crucial roles in the economy and culture of the U.S., have real
power to reshape this country, as a vibrant part of broad multiracial
movements for justice and equality. As anti-racist white people, we have a
role to play in this struggle.
Immigrants are the direct targets of these policies, and we know
enforcement will aim at immigrants of color. But we are all endangered by
the accelerating drive of this country towards greater abuse of working
people, more criminalization of poor/working-class people, and of all
communities of color, particularly African-Americans. Our futures are tied
together and now is the time to stand with immigrants fighting for their
rights.
The ruling class in the United States has historically led anti-immigrant
campaigns to divide working people, getting people to blame one another
for stealing their jobs while corporations build their financial empires
from all of our labor. Building from a foundation of enslaved African
labor and mass land theft from indigenous nations, corporations used
anti-immigrant campaigns against the Irish, Italian, Jews. Chinese,
Japanese, Eastern Europeans and other immigrants, to deny them legal
protections, attack unions and maintain cheap labor to under-cut better
waged jobs. These campaigns intensified with the Chinese Exclusion Act in
the 1880’s and as more and more European immigrants were assimilated into
white society, immigrants of color from Asia and then Latin America were
targeted to be a permanent low wage, legally unprotected, work force to
drive wages down and corporate profits up.
White people have led and rallied behind anti-immigrant campaigns in the
millions throughout the history of this country and today a new history
for immigrant justice is being written and we have a responsibility to be
part of it. We’re fighting two racist agendas: big businesses need to
retain a vulnerable pool of exploitable labor, and the blatant organized
racists want to preserve white political dominance and agitate for mass
deportations. This divided right wing unites to dehumanize immigrants of
color, working to strip them of any rights or protections. The small
handful of mostly white billionaires backing and benefiting from these
strategies depends on our complicity. Instead, let’s build upon the legacy
of anti-racist white people who have refused to participate in divide and
conquer strategies, where the ruling class historically uses race to pit
us against each other.
White people need to take responsibility for countering the attacks
generated by white racists, from the border to the White House.
If you’re a white person who stands for justice, we encourage you to step
it up. How can you more actively support immigrants fighting for their
rights, and encourage your families and friends to get more involved? What
local organizing by immigrants can you support with your time, money, and
resources? On April 23rd in the Bay Area, and throughout the country on
May 1st (International Workers’ Day) immigrant communities around the
country will again take the streets. Let’s be there in greater numbers: on
the streets beside our friends and neighbors, raising our voices in the
national debate, making a commitment to organizing more white people to
stand up against attacks on immigrants.
This letter comes to you from two Bay Area-based white anti-racist
organizations, Catalyst Project and the Heads Up Collective. Heads Up is a
member organization of the Deporten a La Migra Coalition, which is
primarily composed of organizations based in working-class immigrant
communities. We ask you to act in solidarity with the principles generated
by the Deporten a La Migra Coalition, Immigrants Fighting For Our Rights.
They are:
The land is for those who work it!
No more displacement
The border is hypocritical
Unity makes us strong
Demand dignity and equality for all immigrants
In every neighborhood, organize!
(please read full text at
http://www.liberationink.com/revised/navigator.php?s=2&a=deporten)
If you agree with these principles, we invite you to sign this letter and
make your signature a commitment to putting them into action in your work
and life.
In struggle,
Catalyst Project and the Heads Up Collective
immigrantjusticesolidarity@gmail.com
Endorsed by:
Elizabeth “Betita” Martinez, Institute for Multiracial Justice
Maria Poblet, St Peters Housing Committee
Eric Mar
Eunice Cho
Sheila Chung, Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition
Renee Saucedo, Day Labor Program/La Raza Centro Legal
Kali Akuno, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement
(organizations for identification purposes only)
Catalyst Project and Heads Up Collective were inspired by the work of
white anti-racists with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice in New York
City, and Italian Americans for Immigrant Rights in the Bay Area, who put
out similiar open letters to move white people to stand for immigrant
rights. By signing here, we are also joining with the thousands of white
people participating in those and other efforts.
Please sign on if you stand with the principles above. To add your
signature to those below, go to this link:
http://www.petitiononline.com/mayday06/petition.html
**organizations listed for identification purposes only**
Adam Welch, Industrial Workers of the World
Alexis Shotwell, UAW 2865, Long Road Collective
Andrew Willis, Washington, D.C.
Amy Dudley, Rural Organizing Project, Portland OR
Andy Cornell, NYC, NY
Betty G. Robinson, Baltimore Education Network and Baltimore Algebra Project
Bill Quigley, Professor of Law, Loyola University New Orleans
Brooke Atherton
Brooke DuBose
Camilo Viveiros, community organizer, Fall River, Massachusetts
Cathy Rion, Heads Up Collective
Chris Crass, Catalyst Project
Chris Dixon, UAW 2865 Members for Quality Education and Democracy Clare
Bayard, Catalyst Project/Heads Up Collective
cori schmanke parrish, North Star Fund
Chance Martin, editor Street Sheet Magazine
Dee Ouellette, mother
Diana Block, California Coalition for Women Prisoners
Dan Berger, Resistance in Brooklyn, co-editor “Letters from Young
Activists”
Dara Silverman, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice
Dixie Block, Oakland
Drew Dellinger, Poets for Global Justice
Ellen Chenoweth, D.C. resident
Elly Kugler, City at Peace D.C
Gordon Kaupp
Heather Meader-McCausland
Harmony Goldberg
Heidi Reijm, Ruby Affinity Group, Brooklyn, NY
Ian McCleod, San Francisco Indymedia
Ian White-Maher
Ingrid Chapman, Catalyst Project
Isabell Moore, ESOL teacher & coordinator Anti-Racist Organizing Network
of NC
Jackie Downing
James Tracy, SF Community Land Trust
Jen Angel, Clamor, Toledo OH
Jen Collins, mother
Jennifer Miller, Oakland, CA
Jim Ace
Jim McAsey, Director- Jobs with Justice, Farmingdale NY
Joseph Phelan , Miami FL
Jordan Flaherty, Left Turn Magazine
Josh Raisler Cohn, Washington D.C.
Kate Berrigan, Critical Resistance
Kerry Levenberg, teacher
Laura Close, SEIU Local 503, Child Care Campaign, Portland OR
Leone Reinbold
Lydia Pelot-Hobbs, Oberlin, OH
Marc Krupanski, Immigrant Justice Solidarity Project
Matt Meyer, War Resisters League
Meg Starr, Resistance in Brooklyn
Mica Root, Philadelphia PA
Michelle Foy, Freedom Road Socialist Organization
Noah Gaiser, Free Mind Media
Paul Kivel, educator and writer
Rahula Janowski, mother, Heads Up, Justice In Palestine Coalition
Rebecca Johnson
Riva Pearson
Ruby Affinity Group, Brooklyn, NY
Sasha Costanza-Chock
Sasha Vodnik, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children
Sean Sullivan, Ruby Affinity Group, Brooklyn
Seth Newton, AFSCME Local 3299
Scott Campbell, Bay Area Coalition to Fight the Minutemen
Sharon Martinas, Challenging White Supremacy Workshop
Teresa Martyny
Vanessa Sacks, Childcare Collective
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