Voice of Revolution

July 29 Actions Against SB 1070 & Federal Government Profiling

We Will Not Comply

On July 29, in Phoenix and cities across the country and in Spain, Ecuador and Mexico, the peoples stood together for immigrant, worker and human rights for all. With actions organized on the day Arizona’s racist SB 1070 law took effect, under the banner We Will Not Comply, the peoples made clear that resistance to government profiling and racist attacks will mount. As one report from Phoenix put it, “Today we showed the world that we will not comply. Tomorrow we will demonstrate this movement is on the rise.”

People carried out civil disobedience, protests, and rallies in cities across the country and the globe. New Yorkers shut down the Brooklyn Bridge for several hours. In Los Angeles, they locked down Wilshire Blvd. In Tucson, they blocked the highways. People protested in Boston, Milwaukee, Chicago, Louisville, San Juan, and elsewhere. They targeted not only Arizona’s SB 1070 but also the federal governments racist profiling and programs.

In Phoenix, more than 80 protesters were arrested in acts of civil disobedience. More than 30 blocked streets outside the Wells Fargo building that houses Sheriff Arpaio’s office while others physically locked themselves to the entrance of Sheriff Arpaio’s jail, closing it down.

Arpaio is authorized by the federal government to conduct his raids and represents the responsibility of the federal government in the attacks on immigrants. As the Phoenix organizer brought out, “Beginning with a banner that was unfurled from a 230 foot tall construction crane in Phoenix on July 28, organizers linked the Arizona racial profiling law to the main cause of the humanitarian crisis — the federal ICE access programs that empower local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration laws.

“If there was any doubt about whether the world accepted a partial injunction of 1070 as a victory, one can listen to today’s chants, Arrest Arpaio, Not the People and SB 1070, We Will Not Comply, and know that there is no partial solution to a human rights crisis.”

Another activist said, “Solving this crisis means not just stopping SB 1070 and Sheriff Arpaio in Arizona but stopping all the Arpaios that the president’s ICE access program is creating all across the country. For our children, for our future, we will not comply.”

Funds are needed for bail and continued organizing. Phoenix organizers ask all to donate at http://bit.ly/azdonate. You can also donate $5 by texting “Arizona” to 50555.

Video is available at http://youtube.com/puenteaz

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National Day of Action July 29, 2010

Organize for Justice & Human Rights!

National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights

The National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR) invites her members, partners, allies and friends to join in a national day of actions against SB 1070, Arizona’s anti-immigrant racial profiling law this July 29. SB 1070 can be stopped by demanding and organizing for justice and human rights for all.

NNIRR is urging the Obama Administration to use all resources at its disposal to stop SB 1070 — and to end ALL federal immigration-police collaboration.

SB 1070 is set to go into effect on July 29, giving Arizona police the power to stop and arrest anyone they suspect of being undocumented. The Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against SB 1070 to declare it unconstitutional; the DoJ is arguing that the state law usurps federal powers to regulate immigration.

Arizona community groups and their partners are leading dynamic efforts to oppose SB 1070 and are organizing diverse actions and campaigns like “Move the Game” to move the All Star Game out of Arizona and expose and build pressure to stop the law.

Take Action to Stop SB 1070

Express solidarity with immigrant and border communities: Organize vigils, protests and other activities to demand an end to SB 1070 in Arizona and to raise awareness of the local impacts of immigration-police collaboration in your community.

Tell Obama and Congress to roll-back all immigration-police collaboration programs: Hold community meetings and other actions to learn about and organize against the 287(g) and “Secure Communities” programs and their connection to Arizona’s SB 1070.

Make calls to President Obama (202) 456-1414 and your Congressional delegation at (202) 224-3121: Ask them to suspend all immigration-police -collaboration and investigate the immigration law enforcement abuses being committed against people of color, immigrants and working people at the border and interior.

Raise your voices for justice & human rights: Report abuses to NNIRR’s human rights documentation initiative, HURRICANE: Human Rights Immigrant Community Action Network.

President Obama: Suspend All ICE-Police collaboration
& enforcement operations

The crisis in Arizona is the result of federal immigration control and border security policies that deliberately funnel migrants through Arizona. Thousands of migrants have died and disappeared and countless more have suffered at the U.S.-Mexico border since the U.S. implemented this border security strategy in 1994.

NNIRR is joining with diverse local and national groups to organize resistance against all forms of immigration policing and racist laws, including SB 1070 and its federal counterparts, the “287(g)” and “Secure Communities” initiatives that allow local police to act as immigration law enforcers. SB 1070 is based on these programs.

SB 1070 and federal programs of ICE-police collaboration violate our basic rights to freedom of movement, freedom of association, protection from all forms of discrimination and the right to healthy communities and public safety.

With collaboration, the police and others use a person’s perceived or actual immigration status to trump our constitutional rights. Now the U.S. is deporting record numbers of people with total disregard for their due process rights.

As copycat laws emerge in other states, the Obama Administration must act swiftly to investigate immigration abuses, including public hearings with our communities to directly learn of the impacts. We need government accountability for the human rights crisis resulting from a flawed and abusive immigration enforcement policy.

Dream, Rise, Organize — For Justice and Human Rights!

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California July 29 Action

Challenging Attorney General Brown
on "Secure Communities"

On Thursday, July 29, 2010, at 11 am, at the State Building, 455 Golden Gate Ave., in San Francisco, dozens of immigrant workers, elected officials, and community leaders called on Attorney General Jerry Brown to authorize San Francisco to opt-out, or not participate, in the federal government’s “Secure Communities.” This federal government program requires state and local law enforcement to automatically and immediately provide information to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of anybody arrested, regardless of the severity of the charges.

In April 2009, the California Department of Justice signed an agreement with ICE, which activated California’s participation in the program. In public statements, ICE has stated that “Secure Communities” is a voluntary program and that local agencies are free to opt-out or decide not to participate.

However, when San Francisco Sheriff Hennessy communicated to Attorney General Jerry Brown that San Francisco wished to opt-out of the program, and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution stating this, Attorney General Brown declined San Francisco’s request. Brown thinks, “This program serves both public safety and the interest of justice.”

“Jerry Brown claims to have the support of Latino and immigrant communities in his bid for Governor,” states Renee Saucedo, a lawyer with La Raza Centro Legal. “We will not support any elected official who promotes policies that further encourage deportations and the separation of immigrant families.”

Immigrant rights, and civil rights organizations, including the Asian Law Caucus, National Domestic Workers Alliance, Immigrant Legal Resource Center, and the Central American Resource Center, oppose the “Secure Communities” program because the majority of those reported to ICE under the program were charged with minor crimes. Furthermore, “Secure Communities” thwarts San Francisco’s Sanctuary Law, and it leads to racial profiling by local law enforcement.

Demonstrators made clear that “Secure Communities” imposes the same kind of racist government profiling and discrimination that Arizona’s SB 1070 does. They vigorously opposed the federal government programs and the federal effort to eliminate the role of local governance in determining how to organize local police. Like those in Arizona, they stood firm in saying We Will Not Comply.

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San Francisco Labor Council
Resolution to Support an Immigration Policy Based on Labor and Human Rights

WHEREAS: Thousands of U.S. union members have been fired as a result of the enforcement of employer sanctions against workers in the workplace, including 1200 janitors in Minneapolis, 300 janitors in Seattle, 475 janitors in San Francisco, as well as workers who have stood up to lead organizing drives into our unions, including 2000 sewing machine operators at American Apparel in Los Angeles, and

WHEREAS: Immigration reform bills in Washington, including the Schumer-Graham proposal, the REPAIR proposal by Senator Schumer and several other senators, and the CIR-ASAP proposal by Congressman Luis Gutierrez, all strengthen employer sanctions, which will cause more of our members to be fired through programs like E-Verify, the national ID card and employment verification, and will make it more difficult for unions to organize non-union workplaces by making immigrant workers even more vulnerable to firings, deportations and the denial of their rights through workplace enforcement, and

WHEREAS: AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has said that that “we need to make sure every worker in America – documented or undocumented – is protected by our labor laws,” and that we need immigration reform that “allows immigrants to be securely part of our country from day one, able to assert their legal rights, including the right to organize, without fear of retaliation,” and

WHEREAS: the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Central America Free Trade Agreement, and other similar agreements, and structural adjustment policies and other so-called economic reforms continue to boost corporate profits while creating massive poverty in countries like Mexico, El Salvador and others, and that as a result, millions of workers and farmers are displaced and have no alternative but to migrate in search of work, and therefore will continue to come to the United States to work, join our unions and participate in our organizing drives, and

WHEREAS: President Trumka has said that “the failures of our relationship with Mexico … cannot be solved with guns and soldiers and fences. They must be addressed through an economic strategy for shared prosperity based on rising wages in both countries,” and

WHEREAS: the Mexican government fired 44,000 electrical workers and has tried to smash their union, the Mexican Electrical Workers (SME), and brought thousands of heavily armed police into Cananea to try to smash the 3-year strike of the Mineros, in both cases to create better conditions for giant corporations by breaking unions, privatizing workplaces and throwing workers out of their jobs, and that as a result many of those workers will be forced to come to the United States in order to find work and help their families survive, and

WHEREAS: the largest corporations and employer groups in the United States, including WalMart, Marriott, Smithfield, the Associated Building Contractors and others have sought to expand guest worker programs, forcing people to come to the United States only through those schemes that treat them as low wage workers with no rights, in conditions described as “Close to Slavery” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and

WHEREAS: our labor movement has called for basic reform of our immigration laws, and adopted a position at the AFL-CIO convention in Los Angeles in 1999 that demands the repeal of employer sanctions, immediate amnesty for all undocumented workers, protection of the right to organize for all workers, the strengthening of family reunification as the basis of immigration policy, and opposition to guest worker programs, and

WHEREAS: our labor movement believes that solidarity with workers fighting for their rights in Mexico and around the world is an important part of immigration reform,

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the San Francisco Labor Council reiterates its support for the immigration position adopted by the AFL-CIO Convention in 1999, and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the San Francisco Labor Council rejects all the proposals in Congress that promote the firing of immigrant workers, open the doors to new guest worker programs, and do not contain a program for the quick and inclusive legalization of undocumented workers, and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the San Francisco Labor Council supports only those proposals for immigration reform that would force the renegotiation of NAFTA, CAFTA and all other trade agreements, in order to stop the enforced poverty that displaces communities abroad and to protect jobs in the United States, and will oppose any new trade agreements that cause such displacement and do not protect jobs, and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the San Francisco Labor Council, supports the proposal for an alternative immigration reform bill made by the Dignity Campaign, because it is based on protecting the labor and human rights for all people, and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the San Francisco Labor Council supports the SME and the Mineros, and calls on union members and working people to defend their rights by picketing the Mexican consulate and taking other supportive actions, and

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that the San Francisco Labor Council forwards this resolution for adoption to the California Labor Federation, the AFL-CIO, and to other local unions and central labor bodies.

— San Francisco Labor Council, Passed unanimously (one abstention), July 12, 2010

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National Human Rights Commission of the Peoples of the United States Prepares to Report on Human Rights Violations in Arizona

TONATIERRA, July 28, 2010

A working group of the National Human Rights Commission of the Peoples of the U.S. convenes in Phoenix today to assess and document the violation of Human Rights in terms of the impact of AZ SB 1070 which was scheduled to advance into implementation tomorrow July 29, 2010 throughout the state of Arizona.

Today however, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton issued an order enjoining portions of the SB 1070 legislation that has been the object of broad community denunciation as a violation of Civil Rights, Human Rights, and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of the territory now known as the State of Arizona. TONATIERRA a client in one of the seven lawsuits before Judge Bolton.

The Tohono O’Odham Nation whose traditional territories are bisected by the US-Mexico border also joined the lawsuit before Judge Bolton seeking injunction against AZ SB 1070, submitting a brief of amicus curiae denouncing the violations of Civil Rights of tribal members which would be caused by the rampant racial profiling officialized by the statute, and as an intrusion and violation of the Right of Self Government on jurisdictions of territories in Indian Country.

The Intertribal Council of Arizona, with a membership of 21 Tribal Nations that control one third of the territory known as the State of Arizona, also expressed opposition to the AZ SB 1070 as being “without jurisdiction” on lands of the Indigenous Peoples.

While recognizing the necessary and temporary nature of the injunction given today by Judge Bolton, which blocks the immediate implementation of portions of AZ SB 1070, acknowledgment must be made that the systemic pattern of Human Rights violations inflicted upon the Indigenous Peoples and migratory workers as a consequence of governmental economic and legal policies, both national and state, have not been addressed.

In turn, the National Human Rights Commission of the Peoples of the United States will continue to assess and document these issues for presentation before the next session of the United Nations Human Rights Council scheduled for November in Geneva, Switzerland. At that time, the government of the United States of America will be called to report for the situation regarding Human Rights in the US, with reference being the Universal Declaration of Human.

Rights and other international instruments of international Human Rights law, such as the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Contesting the lack of regard for the rights of the jornaleros, migratory workers and day laborers generally in the process of addressing the economic injustices of international trade policies such as NAFTA which frame the issue of AZ SB 1070, TONATIERRA general coordinator Tupac Enrique Acosta stated: "Under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 23 to which the U.S. government is signatory, everyone has the right to work. What is at issue are the illegal, discriminatory and predatory economic policies and practices of the licensing procedures for lawful employment in the U.S. economy.”

“Such policies and practices are in themselves complicit in perpetuating the centuries of depravation, exploitation, and racism inflicted upon our Indigenous Peoples, and marginalized workers in general under pogroms of colonization.”

Working from the perspective of the long trajectory of social justice movements in North America that include the experiences of the U.S. Civil Rights movement of the previous generation, the theme of community organizing efforts in Arizona has been driven by the message: From Selma to Phoenix, from Civil Rights to Human Rights and the Rights of Mother Earth.

In this context, at the last major march for Human Rights in Phoenix that took place on May 29, and was led by delegations of Indigenous Peoples, a Declaration of Interdependence was proclaimed as fundamental to the strategy of movement building, which now is realized, with the National Human Rights Commission of the Peoples of the United States.

As a point of departure for the report to be compiled and submitted to the UN Human Rights Council, the Arizona working group will reference the UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights (1948) and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007) to clarify the situation in regards to the Human Rights of the “non-white” and Indigenous Peoples of the territories referenced in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) which established the current border between the republics of the US and Mexico.

Specifically, the accusations of Human Rights violations brought forward in the Community Indictment Against the State of Arizona, Governor J. Brewer (et al), which was served during the National March for Human Rights May 29, 2010 specifies points of evidence, documentation, and denunciation to be elaborated in the report to be delivered to the United Nations Human Rights Council, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States (OAS), and the member states of the UN as a whole.

TONATIERRA

602-254-5230 • www.tonatierra.org • Chantlaca@tonatierra.org