The Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights (GLAHR) is a Mijente hub organization, and we are proud to support GLAHR in their latest initiative, The Block. Through The Block, GLAHR works with and organizes Latinx youth across Georgia in rural and urban communities. This initiative continues the developed work of GLAHR by providing political consciousness and transformative work within the Latinx community for a collective space. GLAHR strives to develop the fight for immigrant rights and fortify la cultura del voto in the state of Georgia through grassroots organizing. The Block is an intersectional space for Latinx youth that upholds values that allows us to be aware and combat the status-quo, beginning with ourselves.
Earlier this summer, 30 youth from Tifton, GA and the surrounding area were gathered at The Block’s Summer Bootcamp, where they learned about the immigrant rights movement and GLAHR through popular education. They participated in dynamic activities and workshops ranging from lessons about teamwork.
This move highlights one of GLAHR’s most significant commitments to reach Latinos in all parts of the states by initiating The Block in the Deep South of the state, with more places to follow.
GLAHR is opening up to all youth within the community to feel safe and at home, to grow, heal, work, learn our roots, and include all our voices as we step into The Block.
Learn more about the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights and their work at glahr.org
During Part 2 of our El Pueblo Se Defiende series, grassroots organizers shared their experiences fighting deportations under the current Biden administration and the strategies they suggest to others who want to be involved in deportation defense work in their local community.
We spoke with Xanat Sobrevilla, organizer with Organized Communities Against Deportations, Carlos Sauceda strike leader with #FreeTheYuba11, Tania Mattos, Policy and NE Monitoring Manager with Freedom for Immigrants and organizer with Abolish ICE NY-NJ, and Esperanza Cuautle, co-director and community organizer with Pangea Legal Services.
The Current State of Things
The deportation cases our communities are fighting show how far the Biden Administration has to go to fulfill their campaign promises. We can also see that policies are not being implemented consistently—and that organizing can make the life-or-death difference in whether someone gets deported or released to reunite with their family. Carlos Sauceda, a grassroots organizer detained and deported under the Trump administration shared: When the Biden administration came in we thought that they were going to make bigger changes, but it’s been difficult.
It is critical that we continue organizing our communities, fighting in solidarity with folks detained and fighting their deportations, and pushing for a “prosecutorial discretion” memo that will help us get more of our people free. Watch the webinar to learn useful tactics shared by our four presenters, and keep reading for ways you can take action in specific cases right now.
How You Can Support NOW Below are current efforts that you can support to increase the pressure on local ICE field offices and to prevent the deportations of more of our community members.
#FreeMarvin
Marvin is a New Jersey resident from El Salvador, who has been detained since November 2019 and is currently on his 124+ day of hunger strike, in Krome Detention Center in Miami Florida. He is a brave leader who is standing up against the abuses of power he’s experienced at the hands of ICE. As his team continues to apply legal pressure, you can participate in the campaign to free Marvin by calling or emailing Miami ICE Field Office Director Garrett J. Ripa.
#FreeDonJuve
Juvenal is a 58-year old, long-time resident of Riverside, California who has been detained for close to four years in Yuba County Jail. Juvenal, known by the community as Don Juve, has been fighting to get his conviction reduced and with public pressure, the San Bernardino County District Attorney, Jason Anderson, may agree to this change. Don Juve’s deportation is imminent, but reducing his conviction would help prevent permanent separation from his 6 children, 13 grandchildren, and the community that has been his home since he was a teenager. You can learn more about his case and support his campaign by calling DA Anderson at (909) 382-3660 and more: bit.ly/FreeDonJuve
#FreeTheYuba6
The campaign to free the 11 individuals detained by ICE in Yuba County Jail (YCJ) in Marysville, California continues to go strong. Now, six men (including Don Juve) remain. ICE has the ability to release them immediately, and allow for them to be reunited with their families and communities. Learn more about the actions you can take to support the remaining detained individuals: http://bit.ly/Free-The-Yuba-11
And Don’t Forget to Celebrate the Wins!
Cesar Elizarraraz had been detained in McHenry County jail since September of 2019. His family was fighting for the jail to close and advocating for his release, even before Organized Communities Against Deportations (OCAD) began organizing around his case in Chicago. And on June 21, 2021 Cesar was released from detention! OCAD shared: “This was possible because of every single person who signed the petition, made calls to the Local ICE office, showed up to the rally and/or simply shared Cesar’s story on social media.”
Chris Pardaise is a Trinidadian NY resident who was released from detention after a community pressure campaign led by Abolish ICE NY-NJ. They held protests outside of the detention center when he was detained in New Jersey, before his transfer to La Salle in Louisiana. With Chris’ medical issues declining while in detention, they increased pressure with a call campaign and were successful in getting his release! Now Chris continues to fight with the Abolish ICE NY/NJ Coalition to free other folks who are still in detention.
On June 24, 2021, Mijente gathered with donors and supporters to share the roots of Mijente and our latest strategies and tactics to build justice on the local and federal level in today’s new political climate.
We spoke with Mijente’s Co-Founder and Director Marisa Franco, Senior Campaign Organizer Jacinta González, and Lane Santa Cruz, Council Member, Ward 1, City of Tucson, Arizona.
Mijente’s Director Marisa opened up the event sharing that Latinx communities are one of the fastest growing populations in the United States. And any incredible demographic and social change in American history has been met with swift violence — “it’s as American as apple pie”.
This means that Latinx people have a target on our backs. While our numbers might be growing, we still have unequal power as we continue to be criminalized more than ever before.
Mijente was born to counteract this and build a grassroots organizing structure for Latinx people to come together, using multiple strategies and tactics, and contest power on all fronts.
This means developing the people’s power to target corporations and governments, mobilize voters and impact elections, and develop community-led, autonomous efforts that give our people the resources we need for freedom.
Contesting power on all fronts became especially important with the continued rise of the right and with Trump bombarding our communities through cruel policies. To fight this, working in electoral politics became one of Mijente’s newest strategies in 2020.
Our goal was simple: make Trump a one-term president.
To do this, Marisa spoke of needing to build an unprecedented movement to deliver the wins we need. Mijente mobilized our members, staff, and volunteers to canvass over 1 million people in the presidential election; reached 2-5 million people through social media, knocked on every single Latino door in the Georgia Senate run-off; and won key sheriff races in counties with long anti-immigrant histories.
Listen to what Marisa has to share on the direction of Mijente: here
Mijente’s Next Priorities: Balancing Rapid Response and Long Term Strategy
Marisa further explained that today’s reshuffled political deck is as equally urgent as before. On one hand, we see the threat of the right’s powerful organizing. On the other, a fractious alliance with drastically different ideas about how to move forward.
And after such an exhausting year of loss and uncertainty, our communities deserve more.
Which is why, moving forward, we are taking the time to invest in:
Developing our first ever strategic blueprint to remain an adaptable and nimble rapid response organization but also develop long term plans for the sustainability of our organization.
Strengthening our organizing muscles by developing new organizing and educational programming to bring more people into our movements.
Expanding our work further in the Southeast and Southwest over the next several election cycles; our work has shown that we can win red states.
Mijente’s Senior Campaign Organizer Jacinta then spoke to our work under the new Biden administration.
She said, “Biden ran on a platform of ‘I’m not Trump’ and we knew that wasn’t enough for our community to actually have safety and dignity. It’s not enough to not be Trump. You have to go farther to dismantle this infrastructure that’s created so much harm in our communities.”
Mijente responded to the Biden win by following up on long outstanding demands. Within Biden’s first 100 days, we organized a sprint of “Eyes on ICE: Truth and Accountability Forums”, 30 events across the country where 150 people testified about the horrors of the U.S. immigration system and the policy solutions we need. This has resulted in Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) accepting our invitation to meet with our most impacted community members to hear our stories and put forth our demands. We are in the process of scheduling this meeting as soon as possible.
Listen to Jacinta’s perspective on our immigration work: here
Influencing ICE’s Enforcement Guidelines to Be Tools for Organizers
Another opportunity Mijente has assessed as a key place to fight is ICE’s enforcement guidelines. DHS is developing these enforcement guidelines, which are essentially rules for how ICE agents act in the field, who they can arrest, and how long they can detain people, etc.
We, along with partner immigrant rights organizations, are working to be part of developing and influencing these guidelines to provide organizers, advocates, and lawyers a tool to empty our detention centers and close them down.
Council Member Lane Santa Cruz of Ward 1 in Tucson, Arizona then spoke to us about how she decided to run for office and the role local politics can play in base building and organizing.
Born and raised in Tucson, Lane recalls being very disconnected and not understanding local politics before running for office. It wasn’t until she experienced her own family shaken from the devastating loss of her older brother to a fentanyl overdose that she saw the structural ways we fail our communities.
Lane decided then that she wanted to put her granito de arena to change her community.
As a city council member, Lane works with Mijente to involve more community members in local politics through an experiment of co-governance. Co-governance is when elected officials listen to their constituents, rather than corporate lobbyists, and, together, they push forward policies that benefit the community. Mijente and Lane are using multiple strategies, such as canvassing 10,000 doors by the end of summer to find out people’s biggest priorities and inviting community members to join or start new neighborhood associations.
Through national and local organizing, from taking on ICE to building power in our communities, we are looking ahead to a year of solidifying our structure and being prepared to take our shot when the time comes.
