Posts Tagged ‘Connecticut’

Stop the Deportations Now!

No Comments | Share On Facebook| Stop the Deportations Now! Share/Save/Bookmark Mar 21, 2013

Irasema Zapata speaks at the rally in front of the Massachusetts State House. (Credit: Eve Harris)

“I have a deportation order, and I don’t want to be separated from my family. That is why I’m here,” said Irasema Zapata, a wife and mother of three U.S. citizen children from Guatemala. Irasema was speaking at a rally and press conference on March 20th to launch the Massachusetts Trust Act.

I first met Irasema just a few days after she and her husband were pulled over by the police. Her husband was arrested for driving without a license, even though he has a valid Washington State license, and they were both put into deportation proceedings. We met when she was speaking at a UU Mass Action event about the Massachusetts Trust Act, telling her story for the first time.

Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) says that their so-called Secure Communities program is about deporting hardened criminals. However, their own statistics tell a very different story. In Massachusetts, 60% of those who are deported are like Irasema and her husband. They have committed no crime and are getting deported for things like minor traffic violations.

We must help stop these deportations! Thirty people, including 15 members of North Parish in North Andover, went with Irasema to a deportation hearing and slowed the process down. North Parish then collected over 100 post cards and brought them to the March 20th rally and press conference at the Massachusetts State House to deliver a message to their legislators. The message? We need to stop deporting hard working immigrants and breaking up their families by passing the Massachusetts Trust Act.

MA Trust Act advocates, including post author Jesse Jaeger of UU Mass Action (center with SSL sign). (Credit: Eve Harris)

UU Mass Action is playing a leading role in organizing the interfaith community around the Massachusetts Trust Act. Throughout April and May, we are organizing a series of actions statewide along with our partners in the labor and immigrant rights community. These actions include our annual Unitarian Universalist Advocacy Day where we will bring over 100 UUs to the State House to demand passage of the Trust Act. We will gain inspiration from our featured speaker, Sister Simone Campbell of Network, who organized the Nuns on the Bus tour in opposition to Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget.

If you live in Massachusetts, please join us in the Massachusetts Trust Act Campaign. Trust Act campaigns are gaining momentum in states across the country, including California and Connecticut. You can also learn how to bring the Restoring Trust Campaign to your local community at the Interfaith Immigration Coalition website.

Together, we can stand on the side of love with immigrant families to help stop the deportation of community members like Irasema.

This post was written by Jesse Jaeger, Executive Director of UU Mass Action.

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Let Us Pray

No Comments | Share On Facebook| Let Us Pray Share/Save/Bookmark Dec 17, 2012

Let us pray for the families who have lost loved ones and little ones at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

Let us hold our own children and family members closer as we remember those who cannot do so today.

Let us pray with our work to make this world safer for all children and reaffirm our sacred obligation to protect the weak from the strong, the many who are peaceful from the few who are violent, the innocent young from the actions of reckless and dangerous adults.

Let us hope for healing in this time when healing seems unimaginable.

Let us love one another with a deeper appreciation of the sacred worth of every child and every human being knowing that when we do so there is a power greater than ourselves that can renew, restore and sustain us.

Rev. Chris Buice

This prayer was offered by Rev. Chris Buice of the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville in response to the recent shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. A shooting at that congregation in 2008 inspired the creation of the Standing on the Side of Love campaign.

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Prayer for Newtown

1 Comment | Share On Facebook| Prayer for Newtown Share/Save/Bookmark Dec 15, 2012

Across the country, people have been reflecting on the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Can we challenge ourselves to stand on the side of love with everyone involved in this terrible tragedy? Rev. Fred Small shared this moving reflection with us. Please feel free to share your own personal reflections, prayers, or anything else that has moved you.

Prayer for Newtown
Rev. Fred Small
First Parish in Cambridge, Unitarian Universalist

Hearing the news from Connecticut of the deaths of so many people, so many children, our sorrow is beyond words, beyond comforting.

This violence was concentrated terribly in that one schoolhouse in that one small town, and yet this violence is commonplace.

In our beautiful and beloved country, scores of people die from gunfire every day.

In Boston so far this year, 49 people have been murdered, 34 of them by guns. The youngest victim was 9-year-old Christopher Miles. The oldest was Mary Miller, age 70.

Each person precious.

Every violent death an abomination.

We are desolate. We are disconsolate. We are angry.

And so we pray.

Spirit of Life,

God of hope in our despair,

God of compassion and forgiveness,

God of many names and one abundant love:

We pray for parents whose children will never again dash through the kitchen, never slam the door, never spill jelly on the sofa, never wake in the night needing comfort, never leave home, never fall in love, never grow up.

We pray for children whose buddies will never again ask if they can come over and play, whose siblings will never again tease them about their hair or their clothes.

We pray for children whose parents or grandparents will never again pick them up, never hold them close, never tuck them in, never kiss them goodnight.

We pray for every person who has lost a lover, a companion, a friend.

We pray for every child and every adult who will never, ever forget what they experienced in that school Friday morning.

We pray for teachers who must learn lockdown drills as well as prepare lesson plans.

We pray for a culture that fetishizes violence in movies, television, videos, songs, and first-person-shooter electronic games.

We pray for a mental health system so emaciated it makes no pretense of reaching those who desperately need help.

We pray for a criminal justice system that privileges punishment over healing, incarceration over reconciliation.

We pray for a political system so corrupted by wealth and bullied by power that good people are frightened to do what they know is right.

We pray for communities where shootings and other violent acts are daily occurrences.

We pray for those abused by the slow-motion violence of poverty and oppression.

And we pray for ourselves, that we may have the wisdom and the courage to act;

to change the conditions that make these crimes not only possible, but inevitable;

and to build the Beloved Community on this earth,

in this community,

in our time.

Amen and Blessed Be.

This post was written by Rev. Fred Small.

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