Posts Tagged ‘White House’

Taking Our Voice to the White House for Immigration Reform

No Comments | Share On Facebook| Taking Our Voice to the White House for Immigration Reform Share/Save/Bookmark Dec 19, 2012

Members of the IIC coalition including Rev. Roshaven (center) with Ms. Rodriguez.

Yesterday, I went with fellow members of the Interfaith Immigration Coalition (IIC) Steering Committee to meet with Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Associate Director of Latino Affairs and Immigration in the White House Office of Public Engagement, and present our list of key principles for compassionate, comprehensive immigration reform to the Obama Administration. I felt honored to represent the Unitarian Universalist community and proud of the good work that so many of our congregational and community leaders have done for migrant justice and the Beloved Community.

For us, any immigration reform that does not include a pathway to citizenship and prioritize keeping families together is unacceptable. As people of faith, we are calling for compassionate immigration reform legislation that:

• Addresses the root causes of migration,
• Creates a process for undocumented immigrants to earn citizenship,
• Keeps families together,
• Enacts the DREAM Act,
• Protects workers’ rights including agricultural workers,
• Places humanitarian values at the center of enforcement policies, and
• Protects refugees and migrant survivors of violence.

What can you do to help support our work for compassionate, comprehensive immigration reform? Local congregations and individual faith leaders can sign on to our letter to Congress listing key principles of immigration reform. Click here to learn more.

Additionally, your congregation or community group can participate in the upcoming Breaking Bread and Building Bridges campaign—a program to create and strengthen relationships between people of faith, impacted communities, and immigrants’ rights groups, and increase local capacity to effectively advocate for just immigration policies.

Keep your eye out in the coming weeks—we are also organizing a national immigration reform call-in on the day after Inauguration (January 22). Join folks from across the country in asking President Obama and Congress to enact compassionate, comprehensive immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship and keeps families together. The IIC Steering Committee will be visiting key members of congress on that same day. Add your voice to ours and help ensure that the faith community is heard!

Rev. Craig C. Roshaven

This post was written by Rev. Craig Roshaven, Unitarian Universalist Association Witness Ministries Director and a leader in the Interfaith Immigration Coalition (IIC) Steering Committee.

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Call the White House on S-COMM! END IT, DON’T MEND IT!

2 Comments | Share On Facebook| Call the White House on S-COMM! END IT, DON’T MEND IT! Share/Save/Bookmark Mar 22, 2012

SCommFlyerFor many months now, Standing on the Side of Love and our interfaith and immigrant rights partners have been mobilizing to end the Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) mass detention and deportation program with the misnomer of ‘Secure Communities.’ We have been challenging the program at hearings across the country and exposing how it breaks up families and is deporting people whose only crime is that they are living in the United States without ‘papers.’ (Many of the people deported have expired VISAs and have committed no criminal offense.) As a result, ICE announced that they would reform the program, but even with some minor reforms, several states and dozens of communities have refused to join the program. Now the Department of Homeland Security is expected to announce a second round of “reforms” to this disgraced program.

The harsh reality is that the Secure Communities (S-Comm) program is too broken to be fixed. It has deported hundreds of thousands of family members and damaged public safety by making victims of crimes and witnesses to crimes fear contact with police. That is why governors, city officials, congressional representatives, law enforcement and communities across the country have rejected the program (for a list of communities that have rejected SCOMM, see NDLON’s webpage – scroll down).

This is why we continue to demand its immediate termination.

Please send a message to President Obama that the program needs to be once and for all “ended, not mended.”

Sign the petition or call the White House: 202-456-1111.

Script: “My name is [insert name]. I am calling from [insert city, state]. I know that the Administration is announcing changes to the “Secure Communities” deportation program any day now. I want to ask the Administration to “end, not mend” this controversial program. S-Comm has damaged public safety, created fear in our communities, and deported thousands of our family members and friends. We urge the President to abandon his legacy of deportation and end the program immediately.”

For an authoritative report on the devastating impact of S-COMM on our communities see “RESTORING COMMUNITY: A National Community Advisory Report on ICE’s Failed ‘Secure Communities’ Program published by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and a National Community Advisory Commission (of which the Unitarian Universalist Association is a member).

To join the movement to keep SCOMM out of your community, see our coalition resources and information at: Restoring Trust: Breaking ICE’s Hold on our Communities. Resources include Congregational Toolkit for Immigration Advocacy in Our Communities, 70-minute video webinar, and a map of local interfaith partners.

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