“While many officials champion their status as ‘sanctuary cities’ and have taken meaningful steps to protect immigrant communities, sweeping criminal laws in these places leave many immigrants trapped within an arm’s reach of deportation.”
While the executive orders, guidances, rhetoric and tweets of the past 100 days have stirred fear and anxiety in communities around the country and the world, immigrant women and women of color have continued to raise their voices, by organizing, mobilizing, engaging members of Congress and local elected leaders, in order to lead and defend our democracy.
Unauthorized entry into the U.S. wasn’t always a crime and Mexican immigrants didn’t always fear prosecution. Congress’ early efforts to include Mexicans in its “whites only immigration policy” were stymied by Western agribusiness, which wanted unfettered access to Mexican laborers. Up stepped a white supremacist South Carolina Senator with a compromise. Coleman Blease’s Immigration Act of 1929 dramatically altered the story of crime and punishment in the United States.
Whether intentionally or by virtue of the fact that the populations historically affected by low-wage, abusive workplaces are people of color, MLOV’s DC on Strike May Day rally was intersectional, highlighting how the most vulnerable communities are always those with the most complex identities.
As immigration dominates restaurant discussions, many chefs who have never considered mixing politics with business are wondering if now is the time to start. The sanctuary restaurant movement involves taking a pledge to prohibit harassment based on factors like religion, sexual orientation or immigration status.
The ban raises a fundamental moral question that has recurred throughout U.S. history: what rights, if any, do people considered outsiders have?
America’s status as a world-class cultural hub, as a proponent of free thought and lively debate, as a country that celebrates our diversity and welcomes new voices and new ideas from all corners of the world, is crumbling.
As many community members start to plan out emergency response teams and community defense, there is a need to think out short and long term organizing strategies that we can use so that we do not fall into patterns of solely doing individual deportation cases, press and mobilizing work, but are also thinking about long-term power building.
What can be learned from the Day(s) Without Immigrants to minimize risks for those who choose to take part in A Day Without a Woman?
In this ongoing "Interviews for Resistance" series, experienced organizers, troublemakers and thinkers share their insights on what works, what doesn't, what has changed, and what is still the same. Today's interview is the twelfth in the series.
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