Recently in Organizing Category

In deportation defense work, immigrant rights organizers can work most effectively to stop a deportation when they collaborate with a reliable immigration attorney. Viewed from another perspective, an attorney can often better serve his or her client with the help of organizers. However, complications can arise with this type of collaborative work.

In recent years, collaboration between organizers and attorneys has most commonly involved Education Not Deportation (END) campaigns to stop the deportation of undocumented youth. END cases were rare before the summer of 2009. Now the federal government routinely agrees not to deport undocumented youth who would qualify for the DREAM Act, were it to be enacted, and who reach a certain threshold of visibility and public support. (The government routinely deports tens of thousands of DREAM-eligible youth who remain invisible to the public--and even some who have strong public support.)

I have worked on several END cases since 2009 as an immigration attorney. In my experience, an END case has the best chance of success when an attorney works closely with organizers and the client's existing support network. Attorneys have access to and relationships with immigration officials that organizers and family members usually lack. Organizers have the trust of the community and are not afraid to directly challenge the government. Organizers, attorneys, and others worked together on the early END cases and created the existing END model. Organizers and attorneys are better able to stop deportations when they work together.

Unfortunately, this does not always happen. Communication between the attorney and organizers sometimes breaks down, to the detriment of the client. Attorneys sometimes have a limited view of what is possible in a given jurisdiction, failing to acknowledge successes in similar cases elsewhere. Attorneys can be too cautious, apprehensive of damaging delicate relationships with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) attorneys or deportation officers. Out of habit, attorneys can shut supporters and organizers out of the case, foregoing the collaborative model for a "what I say goes" approach. It's worth taking a closer look at how and why these problems arise, and what can be done to address them.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was listed as a "hero" for immigration reform by the pro-migrant political action committee, Immigrants' List.

I greatly value the work that Immigrants' List does, and encourage folks to donate to them. We need more pro-migrant PACs like Immigrants' List, and we need more money for them if we ever hope to have a pro-migrant impact. Of the ten heroes Immigrants' List cites, I agree with their selection of the other nine heroes. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), however, has to be one of the worst pro-migrant politicians in the country. That is to be distinguished, of course, from some of the worst nativists in the country, like Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach.

There are few more difficult people to write about than the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (gotta give the man all his titles). MLK has long since become more about the people invoking his name, than about the man himself.

If I were to recommend one short article to read on MLK, today, it would be this 2005 Harvard Crimson article written by Brandon Terry, a friend, and one of the wisest people I know. He writes about the intellectual strands of MLK that have been long forgotten, namely "elements of Third World radicalism, black nationalism, and Marxism." Brandon also gives one of the best recommendations I can hope to give, on this day, to those who are interested in learning about the real MLK. Read the book "A Testament of Hope," a collection of MLK's writings which has effectively become my MLK bible.

I should end this post here. I'm tempted to say that if you haven't read through "A Testament of Hope," you have no business writing or even thinking that you know what MLK is about.

NOTE: This is a draft with typos and without links. I might refine it and cross-post it elsewhere, but since it's been so long since I blogged, I thought I'd just put it up as is, now, rather than let it sit into irrelevance as so many of my other drafts have.

Yesterday, Cecilia Muñoz got promoted, and another 1000 people got deported. The Obama administration deports over a thousand people, every day, more than any administration before by many counts. The Obama administration tells us most deportees are criminals, nativists say it's not enough, but the truth is the vast majority of those being deported are noble people, heroes even, who are seeking a better life for themselves and for their families, and who make those they live among better off.

If the idea of over a thousand deportations a day doesn't strike you as cruel, make no mistake, only a violent system can forcibly remove that many people a day. Economic, psychological, spiritual, and physical violence are all involved, from the terror migrant communities live in, to the moment ICE agents bust down the doors to peoples homes, to the horrific conditions in which people are imprisoned, to the shackles and drugs used to force people onto planes. If you've gotten to know just one person caught in our broken immigration system you'll know the violence that these laws are doing to the strangers among us. It's the law, nativists will say, but as the wise have said for as long as imperfect human laws have existed, an unjust law is no law at all.

Increasingly, the Obama administration has made Cecilia Muñoz the face of this violent and unjust system and I say that without condemnation.

It took me some time to search around for this so I thought I'd share it here with folks looking for the same thing. The video embedded below should start playing at 1:00:35, but if it doesn't just skip to there to see what Republicans have to see about U.S. immigration policy:



The overall agreement on focusing on border security first is just filled with lies and logical fallacies. It's a lie to say that communities along the border aren't safer than they've ever been, and it's a fallacy to believe that you can stop unauthorized migration across the border without fixing the broken immigration system. What's worse, people who have done the research on the border have shown that beefing up border security has probably done a lot more to keep unauthorized migrants in than to keep them out. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately in this case, politics has never been about truth, but about power.

ACTION: Donate to the Student Immigrant Movement

I just received an email from the Student Immigrant Movement (SIM) and I wanted to share it with people and encourage them to donate. Before I share the email, though, I just wanted to provide some context.

If you're reading this and you haven't heard my story, yet, I recently updated it, here. The short of it is that I got connected to the pro-migrant movement by blogging but it was actually the Student Immigrant Movement that taught me how to make real change. Carlos Saavedra, who is now with the National Coordinator of the United We Dream Network, was the one who taught me how to organize.

In my inbox today from DreamActivist.org after another undocumented youth civil disobedience action led by DreamIsComing took place in San Bernadino yesterday:

Hi David

'You are lucky, you must be a citizen. . . aren't you?' the police officer at the jail asked Martha Vazquez, 22, just as she left an interview with ICE. Martha was one of the youth arrested hours earlier at the campus of San Bernardino Valley College.

The catch is that Martha is undocumented, in fact hours before she was at a protest publicly declaring her legal status. Everyone knew she was undocumented. The police and even ICE knew she was undocumented, but they all made a conscious decision not to turn her or any of the youth arrested over to ICE authorities.

The reason for this is simple, ICE authorities are scared of DREAM-eligible youth. If you are public, if you share your story and you are out then ICE is afraid of you. They are afraid to detain you knowing the backlash it would create in the community. They are afraid to come after you because they know we can effectively fight against our deportations and stop them.

This is the reason why we urge all undocumented youth to get active, the more active you are the safer you are. While in jail the youth met many other undocumented immigrants who were not as privileged as them, people who are still in jail and will most likely be detained by ICE.

ICE has power over our communities because they know we are afraid of them. Think for a moment, what would your community look like if the undocumented immigrants there were no longer afraid of being detained by ICE? If they no longer had that fear and could come out of the shadows everyday. Think about it.

We will continue to organize until we reach that point. We hope you will join us.

All of the work we do is completely volunteer run, unlike some organizations we are not funded by any foundations or corporations. If you enjoy or support the work we do please consider making a donation.

Thank you for your support,

Mohammad Abdollahi
co-founder of DreamActivist.org

Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight delivers what I think is one of the most succinct and accurate critiques of Barack Obama, yet, by comparing his leadership style to that of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's.

If you haven't read it, yet, Michael Barbaro's article in the New York Times provides a clear window into how change is made by describing Cuomo's behind-the-scenes maneuvering to make same-sex-marriage a reality . That's the sort of leadership we need in this country.

The 2011 Citizens Medal will recognize U.S. citizens who have performed exemplary deeds of service outside of their regular jobs, including individuals who meet the criteria listed at the bottom of this post. Nominations must be received by Monday, May 30, 2011 at 11:59 p.m. EST.

I nominated Mohammad Abdollahi, co-founder of Dreamactivist.org and DreamIsComing and undocumented activist. Here is the application I submitted tonight:

Explain why your nominee should receive the Citizens Medal based on the criteria outlined here:

Mo has a demonstrated commitment to service in his community. He co-founded Dreamactivist.org and has helped stop the deportations of dozens of other undocumented Americans through peaceful organizing.

Mo helped his country through extraordinary acts. He helped organize and was one of the participants in the first civil disobedience action carried out by undocumented activists in the United States who had no previous contact with immigration enforcement, at Senator McCain's Tucson office in May 2010. He then continued to organize further actions, along with other committed undocumented and citizen activists, to motivate elected officials to move the DREAM Act forward in 2010.

Mo's service relates to a long-term or persistent problem. The current immigration laws penalize those brought here as children, Americans in all but name, and mandate their exile. Elected officials have not found the courage to address this problem, so undocumented youth like Mo have taken responsibility for their own futures.

"It's much more like Egypt then MoveOn", is the comparison Roberto Lovato used to describe how migrant youth use social media as we prepared for our panel in the National Conference for Media Reform here in Boston.  It's an apt comparison, I believe.  Unauthorized migrant youth, or Dreamers (after the DREAM Act), have had to use social media differently then most in the U.S.