The issue of immigration and the US/Mexico border has been a major point of focus for Trump. He has even shut down the government over this issue. The revolving door of leadership at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) produces more and more individuals obedient to Trump’s bidding. He has threatened trade wars with our neighbors in order to build pressure for his immigration agenda. The images and reports from concentration camps and along the border painfully demonstrate the harm and trauma inflicted on our people daily. This is a crisis, one that Trump is exacerbating. What would be your immediate first steps to address the crisis at the US/Mexico border and in Central America?
Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions instituted a ‘zero tolerance’ policy last year, which many point to as a catalyst for the family separation crisis at the border, leading to the incarceration of infants and children. Sessions’ decision doubled down on the criminalization of migration and moved us in the opposite direction of criminal justice reform. Last year, immigration violations made up some 57% of the federal criminal docket at roughly 94,000 prosecutions, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. Would you commit to end these policies by repealing Sections 1325 and 1326, the laws that lead border crossers to be criminally charged?
Over the last several years we have witnessed unprecedented criminalization, detention, and deportation of immigrants. ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) continue to operate with a virtual blank check despite broad public support for solutions beyond the breaking up and locking up of communities and families. In a first step towards the necessary changes that need to occur with how this country treats immigrants, as President will you institute a moratorium on deportations?
The American Dream and Promise Act included provisions which excluded people who have had prior contact with the criminal system from the chance to obtain lawful status. Narrow policies on immigration that only help some immigrants end up dividing our communities between those labeled “deserving” of humanitarian reform, and those who will be used to justify the growing system of immigration enforcement, detention, and incarceration. Despite all the energy for criminal justice reform, immigrants are being left behind, with 750 of the first 3,000 federal prisoners being released as part of the First Step Act handed over to ICE for potential deportation. What would you do to protect all immigrants, even those with a criminal record?
Even before Trump entered office, asylum seekers struggled to achieve meaningful protection in the US, and immigrants who sought to stay with their US-born family members struggled with an overloaded system not designed to facilitate family reunification. Beyond simply reversing the policies Trump put in place, what plans and ideas do you have to help asylum seekers and to strengthen family reunification?
The Trump Administration has dramatically expanded the immigration detention system – new federally-run and private-prison run detention centers have opened, and existing ones have expanded their capacity. The increased use of electronic monitoring of immigrants means that even those who leave detention end up a part of what Michelle Alexander and others are calling “e-carceration.” What is your position and plan on the use of immigration detention and electronic monitoring of people facing deportation?
Technology companies play a critical role in operationalizing Trump’s immigration agenda. Companies like Palantir build ICE’s software to surveil immigrants. All of this is built on Amazon’s cloud. We’ve got upstarts like Anduril selling surveillance at the border, and big companies like Microsoft telling us they are “proud to work with ICE.” The CEO of AWS, Andy Jassy, spoke at a conference recently and said he would work with any government agency as long as it’s legal. Other CEOs have claimed it’s patriotic to provide the government with state of the art technology. However, when this work goes unchecked and advances the policies of this Administration, it is not only irresponsible, it is unpatriotic. An expanded surveillance state threatens our most basic civil liberties. Tech companies receive large contracts to support the immigration system, and those contracts keep getting bigger each year. What will you do about tech’s role in immigration and policing?
In 2015, timed with LGBTQ pride festivities, Immigration and Customs Enforcement celebrated its announcement of guidelines for the safe and humane treatment of vulnerable populations. This memo is obviously not being recognized. In the last year, two transgender women died in immigrant detention centers. Roxana Hernandez died from cardiac arrest. Subsequent investigations found she was neglected medically and abused. Earlier this month, Johana Medina Leon died while in custody of immigration officials. She waited months for an opportunity to present herself at an official port of entry and petition for asylum. This is in addition to the growing number of children currently dying in the custody of immigration officials. If immigration detention facilities cannot guarantee the safety of detainees and in particular vulnerable populations, what is the justification for continuing to incarcerate migrants and expand the detention system?
In this moment, when the state weaponizes trauma against our migrant communities, our tactic becomes building resilience.
The suffering inflicted on migrants has intensified during the current administration, illuminating the need for our movements to have access to culturally grounded and justice-oriented healing that is accessible to our frontline communities. The current political assaults on our community can devastate our spirits, livelihoods, and wellbeing, leaving deep wounds for generations. We need to affirm our humanity, our worthiness, our power, and all our people’s beauty. We declare that our future is bright and self-determined.
The Latinx Therapists Action Network (LTAN) is one resource building the path to this future. LTAN is a national network of Latinx mental health practitioners committed to affirming the human dignity of Latinx migrant communities, by supporting those on the frontlines of the struggle against criminalization, detention and deportation.
LTAN has an online platform with a directory and peer support collective of Latinx therapists at www.latinxtherapistsactionnetwork.organd those with mental health expertise in Spanish and English to build the resiliency of the migrant rights movement and its leadership by:
Providing low cost mental health services.
Providing emotional health education where therapists and grassroots organizations coincide geographically and through building a vibrant online platform of resources.
Deepen the consciousness of Latinx Therapists about issues of criminalization, incarceration and migration to better serve our communities
Stand in Solidarity with the Migrant Rights Movement against criminalization, detention and deportation.
In case you missed it, Carlos Garcia, a founding member of Mijente and veteran community organizer won his city council election last week in Phoenix, Arizona – a city that is almost majority Latinx yet lacks candidates that truly support our community values. That’s why this year we were proud to include Carlos among our endorsed slate of candidates. At Mijente, we build the political power of our comunidad by encouraging and supporting community leaders to take the next step and run for office. Carlos was this candidate. If you’ve followed his historic organizing history in Arizona it includes many accolades: the defeat of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, innovative deportation defense organizing and powerful protests that have spread throughout the country – Carlos has been an instrumental leader in it all.
Here are 8 highlights and little known facts you might have missed from his inauguration that we can all take inspiration from.
1) It was a packed house that included many of Phoenix’s robust activist community, many of whom have been on the front lines for human and civil rights for years and were part of the effort to elect Carlos to the Phoenix City Council representing District 8.
2). The festivities were kicked off by Mariachi singers and Danza. After the event, former majority and minority leader in the Arizona State Senate, Alfredo Gutierrez remarked, “I’ve been to maybe hundreds of inaugurations like this, I have never seen anything like it.”
3) Carlos was sworn in by his longtime friend and Puente co-founder Jovana Renteria. Jovana has been a longtime defender of families in Phoenix, working within the legal system to free our people from deportation and prisons. If you look closely, you’ll see that Carlos sworn in with hands on the book, Occupied America, by Rodolfo Acuña: a book that shaped the Chicanx movement, identity, and politics.
4). Unite-HERE was in the house strong, with one of their own leaders, Betty Guardado being inaugurated to District 5. Longtime labor leader and California State Senator Maria Elena Durazo and State Rep. Athena Salman led the invocation by reading the Prayer of the Farm Workers Struggle.
5). The Barrio First fellows – the young people who helped knock over 60,000 doors in District 8 – made an appearance. The group chanted, “It is our duty to fight! It is our duty to win! We must love each other and protect each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”
6). Carlos’ speech had many highlights, including a pledge to be unapologetically progressive and a special shout out to his mama, pictured below. You can catch the video here.
7). Another facet that was very rare: Carlos introduced the staff team that will work for District 8: – Cymone Bolding, Adriana Garcia Maximiliano and Jacqueline Garcia. Cymone, who will serve as Chief of Staff, addressed the crowd.
8). Our very own Marisa Franco, executive director of Mijente, gave the closing speech – calling attention to the years of organizing battles against SB1070 and Sheriff Arpaio, crediting the advancements to the efforts and courage of many people. She closed with a special call to action, that—as we face new challenges, we must continue to organize.
Mijente’s Deputy Director Isa Noyola speaks on the death of Johana Medina Leon, a 25-year-old trans asylum seeker from El Salvador who died in ICE custody on Saturday, the first day of Pride month. You can support funeral costs for Johana through our fundraiser.
I’m going to share some reflections about all that is going on in this moment of so much violence, especially this month of Pride where so many places started to celebrate. My heart is really heavy in the midst of so much grief and sorrow that our communities are experiencing. But I wanted to take the time to share and acknowledge this moment, and as an organization, Mijente is working closely with communities on the ground, especially in El Paso who have been supporting folks detained inside the Otero facility. We’ve been working with detained migrant solidarity groups and so many other folks who have been supporting migrants who have been locked up in detention.
We know as Mijente that the human rights violations have been ongoing. This is not new. These violations have been occurring ever since the detention facility system has been growing and manifesting in our communities. This continues to occur and we have another example of what’s at stake in this moment, what’s at stake for our communities, what we mean by Abolish ICE, what we mean by saying we want to get rid of these systems that are harming our communities, that are harming our people, especially vulnerable populations.
Johana is a part of that. She paid the biggest price ever–with her life. She was a young trans woman from El Salvador, who migrated with so much hope, con mucha esperanza, seeking refuge, seeking a chance and an opportunity.
We want to acknowledge this moment and how hard it is for everyone to process, for folks to hear this news yet again, coming off of a week of action that a lot of LGBT groups across the country have been mobilizing and that Familia TQLM has been supporting. Today is a day of action in Sacramento where they’re going to uplift both Roxsana’s and Johana’s lives.
It’s a tough moment. And I want to share that and be in solidarity with folks on the ground and be in solidarity with communities both as an individual and as an organization.
We are committed more than ever to the larger vision that we have of liberation for all of our communities.
For those who feel that the state is zeroing in on them, we got your back. We’re here for you. And we continue to fight. And if there’s anything that should give us hope is that our communities continue to show up. We’re not stopping until these systems and detention facilities are completely abolished because we can’t see the suffering of our people any longer, we can’t see the deaths of our people any longer. Johana along with Roxsana and so many migrant children at the border, vulnerable populations that are suffering in solitary confinement and administrative segregation at this very moment, we are joining their voices and we are joining their struggle because there’s so much at stake and the ways that ICE continues to dehumanize our people can no longer continue.
