Latest Bush Directive
• Arrangements for Presidential Dictatorship
All Out to Defend Palestine
• Al-Awda Convention: Uniting for the Return
• The World Says No to U.S.-Israeli Occupation
Government Attacks on Immigrants, African Americans,
Iraq Show Necessity
Let Us Work Together for An Anti-war Government
Anger across the country is widespread. Congress has passed another $100 billion in Iraq war funding, with no restrictions or deadlines for withdrawal. War President George W. Bush, having vetoed the last bill, says he will sign this one. The bill is not only pro-war, it puts in place a broad attack on sovereignty, by putting into law “benchmarks” for the Iraqi government. The law attempts to make legal U.S. interference in the internal affairs of Iraq, including deciding laws in Iraq, such as the current one on oil. More funding and more "laws" cannot make an illegal war legal or just.
At the same time the Senate is now debating an immigration bill that is a brutal attack on immigrants, their families and all workers. It is designed to put in place police-state arrangements that provide for a system of indentured servitude and the civil death of anyone the government decides does not “merit” participation in civil society.
Thirdly, at a time when African-Liberation Day, May 25, is celebrated in the U.S. and worldwide, the U.S. is putting in place a military command center for intervention against Africa, while the mass incarceration levels of African Americans are nothing short of genocidal. The brutality and viciousness of state-organized racism against African Americans and immigrant communities is intensifying daily. This can be seen in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, police brutality in the communities, and the police riot against demonstrators in Los Angeles on May Day.
The President and Congress are without any doubt pro-war — war against Iraq, against immigrants, against African Americans. Despite clear and repeated anti-war stands by the people in all variety of ways — through letters, calls, meetings, teach-ins, vigils, local and national demonstrations, elections and more, Congress and the President follow the pro-war agenda of the U.S. empire builders they serve.
Just as the U.S. rulers insist on a pro-war agenda despite rejection by the people, they are also putting in place the required fascist arrangements of governance at home. At a time when the people are demanding that democracy be modernized and in step with their drive to govern and decide, the U.S. rulers are excluding growing numbers from voting and from civil society as a whole. The Senate debate on immigration brings this to the fore.
The bill requires all workers to meet government determined identification requirements. A biometric ID will be required for work and the database produced by these ID cards will be turned over to the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, which means the CIA and military will also share it. The government can also decide not to issue the card, using secret evidence or similar claims of a “national security” threat or “insufficient” documentation.
Using anti-immigrant legislation, the long-standing arrangements in the U.S. that separate civil and criminal law are being eliminated, as is the division that separates civilians and their personal information from the police agencies. The division between local and state law enforcement and federal law enforcement, as well as the role of the military, are all being eliminated. In its place is an effort to have a single system controlled and commanded by the Office of the President, with its federal departments and policing agencies. Ability to participate in civilian life, including working, voting, getting medical care, will be given only to those that “merit” it, according to criteria determined by the government and arbitrarily enforced as they see fit.
This path of war and fascism is no solution. The Democrats have shown beyond any doubt that majority or minority, they are pro-war, at home and abroad. While the direction of the rulers is fraught with grave dangers, the opportunity to bring forward an anti-war government exists. An anti-war government stands against aggressive war abroad, and for relations of mutual respect and benefit for all. It requires reparations for all the wars and crimes of the U.S., including that of slavery. It stands for canceling the debts and contributing to meeting the needs of humanity worldwide. An anti-war government at home would necessarily take action to defend the rights of immigrants and all workers. It would eliminate the unjust laws and sentencing guidelines used to impose mass incarceration of African Americans. An anti-war government would be pro-social, organizing to meet all the needs of the people.
Many people in various ways are already discussing and demanding new arrangements of this kind. What is required is to work together for an anti-war government. Let us discuss the 2008 elections with this need in mind. Let us continue to step up our resistance by defending rights and building up our collective mechanisms of empowerment. Let us continue to find the ways and means to affirm the right of the people to govern and decide. Now is the time for an anti-war government — let us work together toward this goal.
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Senate Immigration Bill S.1348
Using Immigration to Criminalize Workers and Justify Indentured Servitude
The Senate is currently debating and voting on amendments to Senate Bill S.1348, titled the "Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007." The bill, like its counterpart in the house, the "STRIVE Act," serves to criminalize immigrants and workers as a whole, to legalize indentured servitude on a broad scale and set the precedent that the Attorney General has arbitrary authority to deny citizenship, including through the use of secret evidence. In some ways the Senate bill goes further in using immigration law as a means to eliminate the distinction between civil and criminal law and between federal, and local and state, law enforcement. In this manner, alongside its brutal attack on immigrants and their families, key content in the bill are police-state arrangements for all.
Police State Arrangements
The bill specifically requires that “benchmarks,” for what is called “border security,” be met before the other elements of the bill, such as the “temporary worker program” are put in place. These “benchmarks” involve all workers. They also call for building mass detention camps for 20,000 and the targeting of border communities with yet more militarization.
In particular, the number of border patrols is to double. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is already the largest armed government force apart from the military. The Secure Fence Act with its death wall, and increased use of “unmanned aerial vehicles,” already known for their use in CIA assassinations in Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere, must be largely in place before the program for indentured servitude begins. In addition "checkpoints" at locations on roads and highways along the border will also be developed. These will enable the federal government and military to stop any and all using these public roads without probable cause of any crime.
Perhaps the most significant police-state measure is the new identification requirements for all workers, to be in place by October 2008. Known as the “employment eligibility verification system, EEVS,” the government will determine the documentation required for identification and for deciding if an individual is “eligible to work.” Employers then must submit the identification information to the government for approval. At present the law requires that all workers, citizens or not, have either a passport or a driver’s license. And the driver’s license must conform to the REAL ID Act, already in law. This means they must have a biometric identifier (finger print and/or eye-scan most likely), and that to get the license the individual must present either a passport or an original or certified birth certificate. Immigrant workers have additional requirements.
These identification requirements are being done in the name of preventing undocumented workers from working. However, these are the same requirements now being imposed on many families, to “prove” they are eligible to receive Medicare and Medicaid benefits. It is already known that tens of thousands of citizens and documented residents have been forced off the rolls and deprived of care, most of them children. In now imposing the same identification requirements for all workers, there is no doubt that many workers, especially national minorities, those who are more impoverished and those who are older with more seniority and benefits, will now be considered “ineligible,” simply because they cannot secure the required documentation. The law also makes it a crime for anyone, citizen or not, to say they are eligible to work if, by government requirements, they are not.
In this manner, people who have committed no crime and certainly not one involving federal laws, are to be part of the DHS and FBI database. And while it is not considered a crime for the government to wrongly identify people or wrongly claim they are not eligible to work, it is a crime for a worker to say they are eligible if they are not. Thus, if a citizen says she is eligible to work but unable to produce the demanded government identification papers, she is committing a crime. But if the government, as is already widely the case with the “no-fly” lists and “terrorist” lists, wrongly brands someone as ineligible, that is not a crime. The law provides no mechanisms for recourse by a worker so branded.
The law puts in place a mechanism whereby the government can arbitrarily determine who is and is not “eligible” for work anywhere and everywhere. And, depending on amendments, all workers may also have to submit to the same “vigorous background check” now aimed at undocumented workers. One amendment also permits the Attorney General to arbitrarily block approval using secret evidence, or any similar “national security threat,” with no recourse for the workers involved.
Consistent with this plan for criminalizing all workers, the law authorizes and calls on local, state, county and town law enforcement officials to “investigate, apprehend, arrest, detain or transfers to federal custody, including transportation across state lines to detention centers, an alien for purposes of assisting in the enforcement of the criminal provisions of the immigration laws of the U.S.” (Section 240D). It is not yet clear which immigration offenses — which currently are all civil not criminal offenses — will become criminal. But it is clear that the aim of the law is to embroil non-federal police agencies in racist profiling and enforcement of federal immigration law. Currently only federal officials, like ICE, have authority to enforce immigration law.
This direction of putting local and state forces under federal control and using them as enforcers of racist and unjust laws can be further seen in an amendment under debate. This amendment extends the requirement for profiling to healthcare and social service workers. They too are to be called on to determine if an individual has the required documentation or not.
Furthermore, additional measures that eliminate the division between non-criminal civilians and policing agencies, including that between criminal and civil law and law enforcement, are those dealing with “Biometric Data Enhancements,” (section 121) and the “National Crime Information Center Database (section 301). To verify that all workers are “eligible” to work, employers must submit the workers’ identification information to the Secretary of Homeland Security. In this manner a national worker ID card is essentially being established, complete with biometric identifiers for the DHS database. The law then calls for that database to automatically be shared with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The justification is to “ensure more expeditious data searches.” And since the laws are already in place for the FBI database to be shared with the CIA and Pentagon, it is clear that any distinction between civilian and criminal and military is being eliminated.
These arrangements are designed to impose a system where the government arbitrarily determines whether an individual will or will not be recognized as a member of society, permitted to work, vote, receive benefits, use hospital and healthcare facilities, federal offices, etc. Those who are not recognized, whether born here or not, will suffer civil death and be deprived of participation in civil society. They may also be imprisoned, detained or otherwise banished. Certain workers will be required to police their fellow workers and be enforcers of these fascist measures of the government, others will be permitted to work and still others will no doubt be sent to labor camps. Thus a main aim of this bill, like the "STRIVE Act" in the House, is to regulate the workforce under federal government control, to divide and split the workers and to take vengeance against them, using criminalization and civil death.
Indentured Servitude
The bill calls for a “temporary worker” program that is 400,000 strong. These workers will have to have a job before being admitted, remain employed for two years, and then return to their home countries for a year. They would then be eligible to return for two years and again go back, up to three times. They are only admitted if they have work and can only remain if they remain employed. It is a set up even the New York Times admitted was “a system of modern peonage,” of indentured servitude, where the worker is required to remain employed for a set period of time at wages and conditions determined by the employer.
The workers will not be permitted to bring family members unless they can show the family has healthcare coverage and the temporary worker can pay for all their needs — which basically means families cannot come. It is also to be the case that once the bill is passed, anyone caught crossing the border without authorization will be fingerprinted and banned from returning.
By its nature, this system blocks the workers’ resistance and struggles for better conditions, as employers can fire them, have them deported and replaced by others. The 400,000 limit can also be adjusted up or down as determined by the government. In this manner a government “hiring hall” of unlimited temporary workers, as demanded by the monopolies, is being established.
“Earned” Citizenship
The bill also elaborates a “merit system” of “earned” citizenship. This is, as President George W. Bush puts it, to provide documentation for the estimated 12 million undocumented people now in the country and do so “without amnesty or animosity.” In fact, they too are to be punished, as are their families. The so-called “Z visas” require fines of $5,000 for an individual and $10,000 for a family of four — fines that for many are more than a half-year or even a year’s wages. It also requires registering and then at least a ten-year wait, when these families would be subject to deportation.
It also puts in place a new “merit” system, reminiscent of the old “citizenship test” required of African Americans to register to vote. These were notorious for being both arbitrarily administered and arbitrarily denied. There is nothing in the law preventing the same government-organized racist and arbitrary actions against immigrants. The “merit” system provides points, judged by the person giving the test. Points are given for such things as ability to speak English; level of school, with extra points for training in science, math and technology; job offers; work experience in the U.S.; employer endorsement; family ties. Even before meeting this arbitrary and thus unjust set-up, undocumented workers in the country must pass a background check, remain employed, maintain a “clean” criminal record, meet requirements for and receive the biometric ID card, and pay a $1,000 fine. Then they can apply for the "Z visa," with no guarantee of receiving it, in which case they will be deported. If they do receive it, after waiting at least another 8 years, each adult must then pay another $4,000 fine, complete English language requirements, and then return home. Then they have to pass the “merit” test to be allowed back into the country and receive a permanent residency card. Thus, they could pay $5,000, pay to go back to their home countries in hopes of returning and then get nothing and be refused re-entry.
The “merit” system will also be applied to all new immigrants. It is combined with significant changes to the visas commonly provided to family members. A “family” will now be only husband, wife and minor children. Everyone else is excluded as eligible for sponsorship as a family member. This is a brutal attack not only on those already in the country who have left family members behind, but also on new immigrants coming into the country with plans to remain and bring their families over time.
The concept of arbitrary “earned” citizenship reflects an orientation by the government that individuals are only valuable as indentured servants, under the lowest wages and conditions dictated. The government, especially the U.S. government, has no social responsibility — for workers and families inside the country or those abroad, forced to leave their home countries as a direct result of U.S. dictate and domination that impoverishes and ruins the economies of the countries of Mexico, the rest of Latin America, Asia and Africa. For the government there is there is no society, no humanity, no social responsibility. There is only U.S. Empire and meeting the needs for controlled pools of ever-cheaper labor and for means to increasingly criminalize, detain and imprison the civilian population.
Consistent with this empire-building and drive for war, the bill also includes the "Dream Act," which will require large numbers of undocumented youth to serve time in the military in order to secure documentation. They will otherwise face deportation (see VOR Update March 21, 2007).
Refusal to Recognize All Languages as Equal
The Senate bill also threatens current requirements in courts and schools for use of languages other than English. It states, “Unless otherwise authorized or provided by law, no person has a right, entitlement, or claim to have the Government of the United States or any of its officials or representatives act, communicate, perform or provide services, or provide materials in any language other than English.” While the bill includes the content “unless otherwise authorized or provided by law,” the rest of the language opens the door to efforts to eliminate English as a second language courses and ESL teachers in the public schools, as well as requirements for materials in other languages. For courts it could mean existing requirements for translators and for court documents in the language of the accused will be eliminated or at the least challenged.
There is no need for a law declaring English as the language of the country, as the demands of commerce already make that so. The aim of this portion of the law is to foment the racist and chauvinist outlook of the government towards other languages and cultures, to deny the modern necessity for governments to recognize all languages and cultures as equal and assist them to flourish. It also provides a legal basis for eliminating the few programs that do now exist to assist peoples who have English as a second language.
The Senate bill is a criminal attack on immigrants and all workers and families. It also is being used to promote an attack on the norms of Congress for developing bills, which is supposed to be through public debate and committee review and development. This bill was done behind closed, directed by the White House, with a select group of Senators. This too is an indication of the undemocratic and fascist nature of this bill.
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Immigration Proposal Means
A Segregated, Militarized and
Dehumanized Society
The new immigration proposal could lead to the biggest human rights offense of the century. The Immigrant Workers Union (Madison, Wisconsin) opposes last night’s congressional agreement and warns that it paves the way for the biggest human rights offense in this century.
The “deal” reached by Senators Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), with support from President Bush does not address any of the biggest challenges of last year’s proposals.
As explained in different media outlets, this deal does not include any provision for family reunification. This means that hard-working families will continue to suffer from heartbreaking division across borders. Not only that, but the deal will obligate undocumented workers to leave the country in order to get any visa. This requirement, in addition to the proposed visa fee of at least $5,000 makes this an unpractical bill, useless for millions of undocumented workers in this country.
The Immigrant Workers Union sees this agreement as far inferior and quite honestly a step backward from last year’s attempts at comprehensive immigration reform (i.e. the Hegel – Martinez bill).
This proposal does, however, serve the purposes of those whose vision for this country’s future is that of a segregated, militarized and dehumanized society. In exchange for this unworkable path to legalization, most of the bill as described is an ultra-aggressive, anti-immigrant agenda. For example, it prioritizes heavy militarization of the border and intensification of the anti-immigrant climate by putting more pressure on employers to not hire undocumented workers. Furthermore, in a directly militaristic approach, the proposal would prioritize the construction of thousands of new immigration jails (up to 20,000 new beds), especially along the border, and prescribes a greater role for local law enforcement. It puts more weight on local agencies’ interpretation of the law while the main causes of immigration are not addressed at the federal level. This will lead to endless criminalization that will break apart communities and will increase racism.
The Congress keeps legislating for the few, while millions of persons in the streets, and with a tremendous backing among the U.S. citizenry, support an immigration reform measure that addresses the real needs of the millions of families in this country that live like second class citizens.
The reality is that the problem will not disappear until it is fixed. First, the U.S. economy cannot afford to lose between 7 to 10 percent of its labor force. Second, there is no way that one million 2-year visas tied to the promise of more repression is a workable solution for anybody. This agreement will lead to only one outcome: perhaps the most massive human rights violations of this new century.
If passed, about 8 to 12 million people will be driven even further underground, under even heavier police persecution. At the same time, businesses will hire more workers and pay in cash to avoid new requirements. On the whole, this bill will set this country back centuries in history. Millions of people will lose any semblance of humane living and working conditions.
Already, the different national pro-immigrant networks are meeting and deciding how to respond to what is already seen as one of the biggest attacks on the immigrant movement and labor in the last 10 years.
Contact: www.uniondetrabajadores.org or call Alex Gillis, 608-345-9544
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Take Action to Oppose Senate-White House Immigration Plan
On Thursday, May 17, key Democrat and Republican members of the Senate reached a compromise agreement with President Bush on an immigration bill after months of closed-door negotiations. The proposal is unacceptable and unreasonable, and we want to encourage everyone to call your Senator and the White House to oppose it! This is not an “amnesty” bill, this is a bill that will continue and expand institutional racism and oppressive measures against immigrant communities, escalate the militarization of the border, and give migrants empty and unrealistic promises for a path to citizenship.
Here are several important points, compiled from several immigrant organizations:
1. False Path to Citizenship
The path to legalization for undocumented immigrants encompassed by the proposed renewable “Z” visa is an onerous burden. The initial $5,000 fee is excessive. This amount is 14 times the typical weekly salary of most immigrants. There is an additional fee at the end of the process, and it is estimated that the fees [for a family of four] could total approximately $10,000. It appears that the administration wishes to cut the deficit on the backs of the undocumented.
The cruelest joke is that border enforcement “triggers” must be met and the current backlog must be cleared before legalization and new worker provisions can be implemented. The implementation of border provisions is estimated to take two years and the time to clear the visa backlog is eight years. Conceivably it could be determined that border provisions are not met or that additional years are needed to meet the trigger provisions. Tacking on the estimated eight years to process under this legalization, it may take 16 or more years before a person can become a permanent resident.
The argument is that this is needed so these individuals do not go “to the front of the line.” This is a specious argument because if Congress truly was concerned about going to the front of the line it would have repealed the Cuban Adjustment Act which allows any Cuban after one year entry into the United States legally or illegally to go in front of everyone, those seeking citizenship or permanent residency alike, in order to be to be granted permanent resident status. Clearly the Senate bill is designed only to punish.
2. Elimination and Reduction of Certain Family-based Categories
Visas for parents of U.S. citizens would be capped, while green cards for the siblings and adult children of U.S. citizens and green card holders are eliminated entirely. While applications in the current backlog would be cleared within 8 years, anyone who applied after May 2005 would have to reapply. This will have a tremendous impact on South Asians who have relied on the family-based system for decades to reunify families.
In addition, a new merit-based point system for green cards is created for all applications received after May 2005. This would create a massive boondoggle. The point system criteria are set by Congress and cannot be modified for 14 years. Our economy is then strapped by this policy that has been set in stone. The economic implications of this are enormous. […]
3. Criminalization of the Immigrant Communities
The proposal allows criminalizing the immigrant communities by empowering local police to enforce immigration law, and pushing “tougher” background checks on immigrants. There are due process concerns with the expansion of immigrant detention, stiffening of the definitions of “aggravated felony” and “fraud” and issues relating to state and local law enforcement.
4. New Guest Workers Program
The new guest worker program is unworkable. It is counterintuitive that an employer will continue to employ a worker after an employee’s forced one-year departure. This is a provision designed to fail.
5. Militarization of the Border
The bill calls for spending billions of dollars to build a “high-tech” border fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. It will force migrants to go through an even more dangerous journey, it will create more border deaths and tragedies, and only fatten the pockets of the migrant smugglers. Rather than building fences the U.S. should be engaging in dialogue with our neighbors to the North and South of us to address the complex issue of migration.
6. Failure to Address Thousands of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) Applicants
Based on the wording of the proposed legislation hundreds of thousands of TPS recipients do not qualify for any type of legalization because they are not in an unlawful status. Legalization for these people must be allowed.
Given that past U.S. immigration policies have changed year-to-year there is no guarantee that “good” elements of this bill will remain and that bad elements will not increase. In the end, undocumented immigrants will be forced to choose an “illegal” way to enter and stay in this country because of excessive costs and barriers to take the “legal” way.
It is unacceptable that immigrants must pay excessive fees in the thousands of dollars and will be required to depart the United States in order to begin the process to apply for permanent resident status. The burdensome nature of this bill confirms that the main objective of this immigrant bill is to punish undocumented immigrants.
The destiny of 12 million or more undocumented immigrants is one of the critical human rights issues in the U.S., we need a comprehensive immigration reform bill that will guarantee path to the citizenship with dignity. We cannot accept any bills that will criminalize immigrant communities and enforce punishments because immigrant workers are not “illegal,” and deserve respect and basic human rights.
Take Action!
We encourage you to call Congress and the White House with the following proposals for immigrant rights:
1) No to anti-immigrant legislation, and the criminalization of immigrant communities.
2) No to militarization of the border.
3) No to immigrant detention and deportation.
4) No to guest worker programs.
5) No to employer sanctions and “no match” letters.
6) Yes to a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
7) Yes to speedy family reunification.
8) Yes to civil rights and humane immigration law.
9) Yes to labor rights and living wages for all workers.
10) Yes to education and LGBT immigrant legislation.
Call the White House Comment Line:
202-456-1111
Contact Your Senator: www.seante.gov
For more information on resistance and organizing: www.ImmigrantSolidarity.org
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Immigration “Grand Bargain” = Grand Sellout
NYC Emergency Press Conference and Rally on Immigrant Justice
With the upcoming vote on the Senate’s "Border Security and Immigration Reform Act of 2007" (resulting from the bipartisan “Grand Bargain” between Senators and the White House), immigrant communities face one of the most repressive immigration plans in decades. The bill includes an enormous report-to-deport program, a punitive pseudo-legalization plan, expanded enforcement at the border and interior, a “guest” worker program with tougher worksite enforcement and minimal worker protections, as well as devastating cutbacks in family immigration to be replaced with "merit"-based requirements. Community groups in the New York metro area are coming together to challenge the Senate “Grand Bargain” on Tuesday, May 22 as part of a national coordination of press conferences (officially on Wednesday, May 23 throughout the country) with the National Network for Immigrant & Refugee Rights.
Join us in front of Senator Clinton’s office to urgently condemn this “bargain” which compromises away our lives. Come speak out against the Senate-White House Immigration Deal and demand that our Senators not compromise immigrant lives.
When: 11am on Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Where: Outside Senator Clinton’s office (780 Third Ave, between 48th and 49th Streets)
Who: Organized by Immigrant Communities in Action and the American Friends Service Committee.
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Urgent Alert
Demand Senate Reject Amendment Forcing Healthcare and Social Workers to Profile Immigrants
The Senate is currently debating an immigration bill worked out and endorsed by the White House, and a select group of Democratic and Republican Senators. Various amendments are also being debated. One, which would have eliminated the “temporary worker” program — a program legalizing indentured servitude — was defeated. Next the “Forced Immigration Enforcement” amendment is being debated. It gives the Attorney General broad authority to deny citizenship on the basis of secret evidence and with no review by immigration judges. It also requires healthcare workers and local law enforcement to profile immigrants and determine if they are documented or not. We reprint below information from the National Immigrant Law Center on this amendment, introduced by Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota.
* * *
Senator Norm Coleman has filed an amendment to the Senate immigration bill that would force cities and police departments to put immigration law enforcement above protecting the health and safety of our communities. No exceptions [such as a women reporting a rape or individuals requiring emergency medical care] are to be permitted. It would give the Attorney General non-reviewable discretion to use secret evidence to deny lawful permanent residents citizenship. A person applying for naturalization could have her application denied and she would never know the reason for the denial.
Immediate action needs to be taken today! We are asking that you contact your senators immediately (it only takes 5 minutes) and pass this information along to your networks. Call your senators now and tell them to vote no on Coleman Amendment # 1158 (Forced Immigration Enforcement).
What the amendment would do:
• Coleman 1158 would outlaw state and local policies that prevent their employees, including police and health and safety workers, from inquiring about the immigration status of those they serve if there is “probable cause” to believe the individual being questioned is undocumented.
• There is no exception, even where such policies are necessary to protect the health and safety or promote the welfare of the community.
Here is what is wrong with this amendment:
This amendment asks public hospital workers, teachers, police, social workers and all public employees to decide when there is “probable cause” to believe someone does not have lawful immigration status. That means treating anyone who looks or sounds foreign with suspicion. That is wrong. This amendment will encourage racial profiling. People who simply look or sound foreign will be the ones whose citizenship or immigration status will be questioned.
Many cities, counties and police departments have decided that it is a matter of public health and safety NOT to ask about immigration status when people report crimes, or have been the victims of domestic abuse, or go to the hospital seeking emergency medical care. That is why they have passed local laws and set policies limiting [or forbidding] when police and city and county employees can ask people to prove their immigration status.
The police understand that community policing depends on respecting the confidentiality of local residents who will cooperate with police. They understand that communities are hurt when their residents are afraid that their immigration status will be questioned when they seek refuge at a domestic violence shelter or ask the police for help in escaping an abusive spouse. […]
Call your senators now and tell them to Vote No on Coleman Amendment #1158.
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Organizers from Romoland, California Say:
Deal On Immigration Will Only Make Matters Worse
As organizers for the May 1 Day of Action in Romoland, California, we oppose the agreement announced yesterday by Congress and the White House. Senators Ted Kennedy and Saxby Chambliss, along with P resident Bush and the other lawmakers involved, claim it will be a positive change. But instead it will bring about further human rights abuses and separation of hard-working immigrant families, and will serve to greatly fuel the discrimination and racism already at work all over the United States and California in particular.
It will not reunify families who have been split under the current conditions. Instead it will make the problem worse, providing for the deportation of thousands more mothers and fathers and leaving their young children to fend for themselves without their parents. And instead of helping immigrants to bring their families into the U.S. and end the traumatic separations, it would make the existing problem worse and discriminate against the very people who are in the most need of the opportunities of this country by allowing only those who already have “sophisticated skills” and advanced education to come here.
Instead of giving the 8-12 million undocumented workers, who have already been serving this country with their labor for years, a fair chance to become citizens, it will force them to tear up their roots here and return to the poverty that forced their immigration to begin with — with the head of the household (and breadwinner) unable to return for as long as 8 years. In addition they will have to pay a fine of $5000, which is impossible for millions of immigrants who are already barely subsisting on the low wages they receive for their hard work.
Guest workers would have to leave every two years and could only return a full year later. This means the loss of their job and home, and the complete uprooting of their lives every two years, with no guarantee they can ever get these things back even if they can return. In essence, it would allow for U.S. employers to use their labor while they receive little benefit in return, only to have what little they have robbed at regular intervals as they are ditched in favor of others who will, in turn, receive the same treatment. These guest workers’ families could only visit on 30-day visas, if that, before they are ripped apart all over again, renewing the anguish and heartbreak of separation every time. In addition these requirements would open the way for employer exploitation that could rapidly bring about a crisis of human rights abuses.
The proposed legislation would also accelerate and intensify the militarization of our borders, and create an atmosphere of animosity and suspicion in the workplace, where employers would fear to hire any immigrant or possibly any Latino, because of the severe retributions for hiring undocumented workers. In addition, it would sanction not only an increase in terrifying raids and roundups (which effect legal immigrants as well as illegal) but would demand the construction of thousands of detention centers akin to concentration camps along our borders and elsewhere, providing for the detention of up 27,500 illegal immigrants per day. Local law enforcement would be given a bigger role in rounding immigrants up, leading to the very real possibility of people being pulled over on the street or stopped and questioned merely for the color of their skin.
This is not, as Senator Diane Feinstein claims, a matter of rejecting the good for the perfect. We say no to this proposed legislation because it will take this country further and further downhill in unfair treatment and criminalization of its hardest workers, while failing to address any of the crucial issues that brought millions of people into the streets all over this nation this year and last. This cannot be called good — it can only be rejected for what it is, a flawed agreement that will harm this country and the hard-working immigrants whose labor is holding up our economy.
We call instead for legislation that will make it possible for immigrants to live and work here, not only without fear and without unjust treatment, but also with the freedom, privileges, and opportunities afforded to everyone else in this country under the Constitution. Until we see a bill in consideration that encompasses these basic rights, we will continue to speak out and make our voices heard, like millions of others across this nation.
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Oppose Detentions by Defending Our Communities
There was a huge ICE raid in Georgia recently and there have been more ICE raids in South Central Los Angeles. We must oppose detentions by defending our communities.
The Frente Contra las Redadas (Front Against the Raids), a coalition of more than 40 Latino, Asian, white, African-American and Arab community and student organizations, extending from Oxnard to San Diego, will be holding a press conference to denounce the continuation of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids against the undocumented migrant community and federal immigration reform legislation by the Senate.
We will also announce a new ICE Raids Hotline (562-236-3939) that will allow people, especially in southern California, to report an ICE raid so that the Frente Contra las Redadas can alert thousands and potentially millions of people within minutes via text messages, email, phone calls, mass media, etc.
The main objectives will be:
1) To publicly denounce the ICE raids across the U.S. and immigration reform legislation in the Senate, as well as the use of police check points to target undocumented migrants in Los Angeles.
2) To publicly announce a new hotline that the public can call to report a raid. The number is 562-236-3939. This service will begin on May 24, 2007. As part of a city-wide campaign to inform and keep the community on alert, distribution of the number will begin with the local community at Macarthur Park, and continue to other areas in urban Los Angeles.
3) To receive text message alerts of ICE raids and abuses by the police department that the public can register at www.txtmob.com. The name of our group is “FCR_LA.” Our coalition will send out text message alerts. This service is free to the public and is available to anyone who can receive text messages on their cell phone.
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Some Facts on Border Militarization
Since 1994, the U.S. government has spent an estimated $30 billion to “secure” the U.S.-Mexico border. From 1993 to 2004, the number of Border Patrol agents nearly tripled (from 4,000 to 11,000) and the amount of spending on border enforcement has increased more than five-fold.
In 2002, the Border Patrol became the largest arms-bearing branch of the U.S. government, excluding the military. Yet the number of migrants crossing the border has doubled between 1993 and 2004.
Controlling the border has become a big business. The U.S. government privatized border security operations when it paid $2.5 billion to Boeing for a new border security system. In the past, border security was considered the sole responsibility of the government.
Border militarization is a deadly policy. In the past 12 years, it has led to more than 4,000 border crossing-related deaths — 15 times more than all the lives that the Berlin Wall claimed during its 28-year existence. An unprecedented 473 migrant deaths were recorded at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2005; more than 260 people have died on the Arizona border alone. [Estimates for 2006 are more than 600 people and the number of deaths continues to increase, with women and children being among those most impacted by death and injury.]
Border militarization harms the 11.8 million people living along the border. Efforts to secure the border have led to the systematic violation of civil and human rights of people living in border communities. Calls for an independent commission to review Border Patrol operations have been ignored. Also, the border build-up has emboldened armed “civilian” vigilante groups, like the Ranch Rescue, and Minutemen, allowing them to operate with impunity, [including detaining and profiling people].
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Latest Bush Directive
Arrangements for Presidential Dictatorship
A new National Security Presidential Directive released by the White House on May 9 th provides arrangements for the President to take over all of government. Termed the “National Continuity Policy,” the directive is to be utilized in the event of a “catastrophic emergency,” to insure the continuation of government. The character of that government, however, is one decided by the President.
A “catastrophic emergency” is defined as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy or government function.” It also includes “a wide range of emergencies, including localized acts of nature, accidents, and technological or attack-related emergencies.”
According to the directive, the “continuity of government” means a “coordinated effort within the federal government’s executive branch to ensure that National -Essential Functions continue to be -performed. Then what is termed “Enduring Constitutional Government” is a “cooperative effort among the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the Federal government, coordinated by the President.” And while speaking to a “cooperative effort,” the directive makes clear, as Bush regularly states, who the decider is. “The President shall lead the activities of the federal government for ensuring constitutional government.” In addition, the Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS) “shall serve as the president’s lead agent for coordinating overall continuity operations and activities of the executive department and agencies.” The DHS Secretary will also “coordinate the integration of Federal continuity plans and operations with State, local, territorial and tribal governments, and private sector owners and operators of critical infrastructure, as appropriate, in order to provide for the delivery of essential services during an emergency.” Hence all of these forces will come under the direction of the President and his appointed cabinet officer, the DHS Secretary. The DHS Secretary is also to coordinate the “implementation, execution and assessment of continuity operations and activities,” including developing and conducting continuity training and exercises.
The overall character of the Directive is to speak to the need for “Enduring Constitutional Government” and then make clear that in the event of an incident there will be rule by the President with a command structure from the President down to local governance. This will include control of critical infrastructure and “vital resources, facilities and records.” The “enduring government” is essentially what Bush is already implementing — reducing Congress to a consultative body, limiting or even eliminating the role of the courts, and then demanding that everyone cooperate with the agenda of the President. This Directive serves to put this direction into a formal Presidential Directive that requires no legislative approval.
(The entire document can be found on the White House webpage under National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive)
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Prisoners Forced Into Involuntary Servitude
The Prison Industrial Complex is a growing industry that uses prison labor in government departments and for a growing number of monopolies. Prison labor is being used as the lowest paid section of workers. The set-up is essentially a modern-day system of “involuntary servitude,” disguised as prison work-release programs.
In addition, private companies like Tennessee-based Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), one of the nation’s largest prison builders, owners and operators — grab major benefits. This is the same corporation that runs the mass detention camps for immigrants and rakes in profits for that as well. In 2006, CCA had revenues of $1.3 billion, expected to continue increasing as prison populations increase.
CCA’s 67 facilities are concentrated throughout Texas, Arizona, Florida, Tennessee, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Georgia, Washington, D.C., Montana, Mississippi, New Jersey, Kansas, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio and Louisiana.
Overall, the prison labor pool includes more than 2.3 million people incarcerated in the U.S., which includes people in federal, state and territorial prisons; local jails; immigration, customs enforcement and military facilities; Indian Country jails; and juvenile facilities.It is anticipated that by 2011, federal and state prison populations will climb by more than 192,000 new inmates.
Some of the companies that use prison labor, include: Dell Computers, Microsoft, Honda, TWA, Nike, Wilson Sporting Goods, J.C. Penney, K-Mart, Victoria’s Secret, Target, Best Western Hotels, McDonald’s, Burger King, New York Hotel/Casino, Imperial Palace Hotel/Casino, Allstate, Merrill Lynch, Shearson Lehman, Louisiana Pacific, Parke-Davis and Upjohn.
The ferderal government is largely responsible for providing prison labor, both for the monopolies and for government. In 1934, Congress established the Federal Prison Industries (FPI), now under the name of UNICOR, to employ and provide "job training" to inmates within the Federal Bureau of Prisons. It currently requires those medically able to work for 12 to 40 cents per hour for institution work assignments, and 23 cents to $1.15 for work in UNICOR factories.
In 2005, UNICOR generated $765 million in sales from its 106 factories. And as of last September, its highest net sales were in electronics at $233.2 million, derived from 3,348 inmate workers in Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Arizona and California.
UNICOR’s customers include the Department of Defense, General Services Administration, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Social Security Administration, Department of Justice, United States Postal Service, Department of Transportation, Department of the Treasury, Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
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Oppose Mass Incarceration of African Americans
According to the U.S. Justice Department, the American prison system — by far the largest in the world, housing one of every four prison inmates on the planet — keeps a total of seven percent of U.S. residents behind bars, or on parole or probation at any given time. This is about 3 percent of the nation’s adult population, or one out of every 32 adults.
According to a recent report by the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, there were 2.2 million people held in federal or state prisons in December 2005, a 2.7 percent increase. The average annual increase of the U.S. prisoner population has been 3.5 percent since 1995.
Up until the 1960s the majority of inmates were white. But since that time, as a means to crush African American resistance and block them from political participation in society, about half the nation’s inmates — one-eighth of the globe’s total — are African Americans. African Americans are now only about 10 percent of the population, but half of those are locked down. One out of three black men in their twenties are out on bail, probation, court supervision, community service, parole, or behind bars. The vast majority are for non-violent crimes, and, with mandatory sentencing, many are imprisoned for their first offense. With three-strike laws, life sentences are being imposed for non-violent drug offense and petty offenses like shoplifting.
According to a 2006 report by the American Civil Liberties Union, African Americans make up an estimated 15 percent of drug users, but they account for 37 percent of those arrested on drug charges, 59 percent of those convicted and 74 percent of all drug offenders sentenced to prison. An estimated 80 percent of sentenced crack users are black, even though they are less than 15 percent of drug users nationwide. The U.S. has 260,000 people in state prisons on nonviolent drug charges; 183,200 (more than 70 percent) are black or Latino.
African American men in their late 20s are locked up at a rate three times that of Hispanic men and more than seven times the rate of white men. African American females “were more than twice as likely as Hispanic females and more than 3 times more likely than white females to have been in prison on December 31, 2005,” according to the Justice Department. “These differences among white, black, and Hispanic females were consistent across all age groups
Immigrants are now the fastest growing section of the prison population, with African American women next. Consider just two women’s prisons in New York, home to presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Located down the road from her Chappaqua, N.Y., home are two prisons housing female inmates, Taconic and Bedford. Forty-eight percent of the women in Taconic are there for nonviolent drug offenses; 78 percent of those in the prison are African American or Latino.
Bedford, the state’s only maximum--security prison for women, is home to some of the worst victims of New York’s draconian Rockefeller-era drug laws — mothers and grandmothers whose first brush with the law resulted in their being locked away for 15 years or more on nonviolent drug charges. Clinton has said not word one about the issue of mass incarceration of national minorities, especially African American and Latino women.
The state-organized nature of the imprisonment can be seen in the drug law and sentencing requirements. Drug users, possessing 5 grams of crack cocaine, for example, have a mandatory 5-year term. The same sentence applies to drug dealers if they are found with 500 grams of powder cocaine.
It is also the case that the broad incarceration of African Americans is used to block them from voting. In 2,000 it is estimated that 1.4 million African American men, 13 percent of the black male population, were unable to vote. The numbers for 2004 and 2006 are even higher. And these do not include all the women blocked from voting because of their imprisonment.
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Racism: The Growth Engine of the American Prison Gulag
By 2011, the U.S. prison and jail population will have added nearly 200,000 inmates — a 13 percent overall increase and a 16 percent jump for women, according to a 50-state study by the Pew Charitable Trusts. About half these new inmates will be Blacks, whose mass confinement is the imperative that fuels the relentless growth of the largest and most pervasive Gulag in the history of mankind. The U.S. prison system is a horrific national monument to racism, that dwarfs and mocks the Statue of Liberty, revealing the United States as by far the planet’s foremost Land of the Un-Free, Home of the Locked-Down — a rebuke to the authenticity of the Emancipation Proclamation.
The 200,000 new inmates projected for 2011 understates the huge presence of the Gulag in American society, especially African American life. The anticipated increase is for inmates serving sentences, currently about 1.5 million. The actual total currently behind bars is about 2.2 million — again, half Black. This number would rise to just under 2.5 million in five years. However, more than seven million men and women are today under criminal justice system supervision, either prison, jail, parole or probation — a mass of humanity that would swell to nearly eight million by 2011, based on the Pew projections. That’s roughly the population of New York City, or the combined populations of Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia. The number of new justice system-supervised persons alone will exceed the population of Detroit.
In 2005, seven percent of state and federal inmates were incarcerated in private facilities, a proportion of captives-for-profit that is certain to rise dramatically unless current political trends are reversed. (For a comprehensive breakdown of the various components of the American Gulag, see the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ “Prisoners in 2005.”)
Yet even the enormity of the gross -incarceration numbers fails to express the grotesque intimacy with the Gulag that has been imposed on African American society. As Paul Street reports, “One in three black males will be sent to state or federal prison at some point in their lives compared to one in six Latino males and one in seventeen white males.”
The poisons of the Gulag have leached into the very fabric of Black society, obliterating “prospects for progress in every arena of African American life,” as stated in an “Urgent Petition to the Congressional Black Caucus” now circulating on the Internet.
Only a purposeful, conscious, unrelenting, systematically executed national public policy of mass Black incarceration in the United States can explain the Gulag’s exponential growth over the last three and a half decades. The genesis of this public policy — which is arguably genocidal in its nature, dimensions, and impact — is equally clear: Mass Black incarceration is America’s answer to the Black Freedom Movement of the Sixties and early Seventies.
Prison populations have ballooned eight-fold since 1970, and more than quadrupled since 1980. Tim Wise, the anti-racist activist and author, notes that:
“In 1964, 65 percent of all prison admits were white, while only 35 percent were people of color. By 1991, these figures had reversed. Did whites decide collectively to stop committing crimes in the intervening years, while Black and brown folks went nuts? Or was something else at work? According to FBI data, the percentage of crimes committed by African Americans has remained steady over the past 18 years, while the number of Blacks in prison has tripled and their rates of incarceration have skyrocketed.”
The mass Black incarceration public policy that emerged as a reaction to the Black Freedom Movement, has long since taken on a life of its own — a Gulag that continues to spread like a pestilence across the land even in the absence of a Black movement and amid falling crime rates. Far from being satiated by the constant digestion of new Black bodies, the monster reaches back to the era of its birth, to snatch aging men who most exemplified the Gulag’s reason-for-being: Black Panthers.
Past is Present
Last month’s arrest of the Panther Eight in the killing of a San Francisco police officer in 1971 signals that the FBI is making good on former Bush Attorney General John Ashcroft’s vow to take vengeance against all ex-Panthers. At 64, Ashcroft is of the same generation as the defendants, but the persecution of the Panther Eight, the flimsy evidence against whom is soaked in police torture and political vendetta, is anything but some kind of “blast from the past,” a settling of scores among old men. Rather, the case is one among many indications that the American state is gearing up to launch a new level of repression — that the mass Black incarceration policy of the previous three and a half decades, although hugely successful in both mutilating the social fabric of Black America and acclimating white America to a pervasive prison and police surveillance apparatus, is nevertheless insufficient to the new tasks envisioned.
Yes, Cointelpro is back (as if it ever really left), but with a much more ambitious mission: to more firmly establish in law and practice the foundations for a centralized police-state regime that can respond quickly and massively to the domestic turmoil that must inevitably accompany a New International Order that George Bush had expected would be nearly achieved by now, if the first stage, the conquest of Iraq, had been successful. In this context, the arrest of the Panther Eight is just the closing of a 36-year-old loop, a connecting and bringing forward of older repressions — and ancient white hysterias — to buttress a New Domestic Order justified by the fictitious War on Terror. The Panther Eight are the specter of a permanent source of terror for white America: angry Black men.
Civil libertarians of all ethnicities understand the broad outlines of the planned new regime, legally centered on presidential fiat in time of (current and endless) war. As the Washington Post reported on December 18, 2005, when the Bush men were defending wholesale surveillance of Americans:
“On occasion the Bush administration has explicitly rejected the authority of courts and Congress to impose boundaries on the power of the commander in chief, describing the president’s war-making powers in legal briefs as ‘plenary’ — a term defined as ‘full,’ ‘complete,’ and ‘absolute.’”
But white Americans will not acquiesce to a police state that negates their civil liberties, or to inclusion in the corporate-refereed global “race to the bottom” — unless they are buffaloed by issues of race. It’s the same old racial pattern, in which aging Panthers become useful to the state once again.
Immigrant “hordes” have joined Blacks as hysteria potions for white folks, allowing Bush to give Halliburton contracts to build “temporary” detention centers “for an unexpected influx of immigrants, to house people in the event of a natural disaster or for new programs that require additional detention space.” However, the Bush men know that arbitrary detention of masses of immigrant Mexicans would cause profound political crisis south of the border, and among American employers. Black people understand who is to be detained: the usual suspects in the event of any “new programs” — us. Once the practice is accepted as “necessary” to control chaotic Black populations, another Rubicon will have been crossed in the march to a corporate-state dictatorship that will encage white society, as well — just as mass Black incarceration inevitably resulted in numerically more whites going to prison than before, although in far lesser proportions than Blacks.
In the future, as in the past, the police state will be built on a foundation of millions of living Black bodies stacked and sorted in the American Gulag. For African Americans, the threat of constitutional negation and mass detention did not begin on September 11, 2001. It arrived in the late Sixties, and inexorably became an overarching reality that has largely destroyed our Freedom Movement dreams. We are now informed that 200,000 more bodies will be added to the penal system pile by 2011 — half of them ours.
African Americans will not accept this projected verdict as if written in stone. Point One of the Black Agenda Report/Congressional Black Caucus Monitor petition now in circulation demands that the CBC, “individually and collectively, take immediate action to: Dismantle Racially Selective Mass Incarceration, beginning with action to sunset or repeal all mandatory sentencing legislation, eliminate the differential in penalties for crack and powdered cocaine, and halt privatization of prisons and prison health services. America’s prison population has multiplied eightfold since 1970. African Americans are one-eighth of this nation, but fully half of her prisons and jails. Mass Black incarceration is a national public policy that destroys the prospects for progress in every arena of African American life. With projections that the prison and jail population will increase by nearly 200,000 in the next four years, the CBC should demand an immediate cap on federal and state prison growth, the latter on penalty of loss of federal criminal justice funding to those states not in compliance.”
For two generations, virtually every Black family has heard the tolling of the prison bell. In truth, it is tolling for the Constitution, as well. Black America can no longer bear the weight of mass incarceration, but the larger society — and those African Americans who mistakenly believe they have somehow sidestepped the juggernaut — must also recognize that the Gulag infrastructure is a Weapon of Mass Social Destruction. Defuse it, or perish.
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Fifth Annual International Al-Awda Convention, May 25-27
Uniting for the Return
The Fifth Annual International Al-Awda Convention, May 25-27, promises to be an amazing three-day event — from speakers and workshops, film showings, to a Palestine Cultural Dinner Event. The opening date of the convention, May 25, commemorates the Nakba, the 59th year since the “State of Israel” was declared on stolen Palestinian land, and which led to the Zionist occupation of all of Palestine. The opening will be held in the evening and include a moving event at which survivors of the Nakba, the great catastrophe, share their recollections of their first-hand experience in 1948.
At this event, survivors of the 1948 Palestinian catastrophe (Al-Nakba) from Haifa, Ramle, Lyd, Akka, Deir Yassin, Beitunia and elsewhere in occupied Palestine share their recollections of the events they witnessed first-hand in 1948.
Al-Nakba refers to the mass expulsion and dispossession of the Palestinian people from their own homeland that began in 1948. More than 500 Palestinian villages were destroyed and more than three-quarters of a million Palestinians were driven out from their homes and lands in 1948 by the Zionist colonization program beginning a process that continues unabated to this day.
On Saturday, May 26, the convention will devote itself to political assessments, and to developing the ongoing work of organizing right to return campaigns such as refugee support, media work, student, art/culture, etc., in addition to our recruitment and outreach projects.
On Sunday, May 27, the convention will arrive at its resolutions based on the concrete recommendations of the various workshops.
The Saturday evening Palestinian Cultural Dinner Event will include keynote addresses as well as music by world-renowned maestro Dr. Nabil Azzam, poetry readings and more. A Naji el-Ali exhibition will also be on display in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of his assassination. The cartoons for this exhibit were kindly provided by Khalid el-Ali, his son.
Among the confirmed convention speakers are:
• Dr. Jamal Zahalka, New Leader of Balad (National Democratic Assembly, al-Tajamu’ al-Watani al-Dimuqrati) who will discuss the current situation of Palestinians living in the areas of their country occupied in 1948 in the context of the persecution of Dr. Azmi Bishara, former leader of Balad.
• Dr. Naseer Aruri, former member of The Palestine National Council.
• Leila Al-Arian, journalist, daughter of political prisoner Sami Al-Arian.
• Elias Rashmawi, National Coordinator National Council of Arab Americans.
Invitation
We urge all Al-Awda members, groups and individuals who support our goals join us in our landmark Fifth Annual International Convention. It is extremely important to show those trying to silence us that they will not succeed. The convention is a superlative forum for right to return activists to listen to expert presentations and to share their own thoughts on how they would like to see our collective efforts and campaigns develop for the implementation of Palestinian refugee rights. With your support, Al-Awda’s Fifth International Convention, like its predecessors, will be one of the largest annual gatherings of Palestinian Arab activists and their supporters.
The community-based local host committee currently includes the Southern California chapters of Al-Awda (Al-Awda Riverside, Los Angeles and San Diego), Students for Justice in Palestine at UCR, The Palestinian American Women’s Association, The Free Palestine Alliance, The National Council of Arab Americans, The Middle East Cultural and Information Center, The Muslim Students Association at Palomar College, The Muslim Students Association at UCSD, Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA, The Muslim Students Union at UCR, The Arab Community Center of the Inland Empire, Campaign to End Israeli Apartheid - Southern California, Students for International Knowledge at CSUSB, and The Muslim Students Association at CSUSB.
For more information: www.al-awda.org
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Washington, DC • June 10-11, 2007
Rally • Teach-In • Lobby Day
Sunday, June 10
Teach-In at the 2007 Annual National Convention of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC)
WHERE: Omni Shoreham Hotel, Capitol Room, 2500 Calvert Street NW, Washington, DC
WHEN: 10:15-11:45 AM
Facilitators:
• Nadia Hijab, Senior Fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies
• Ambassador Afif Safieh, Head of PLO Mission to the United States
• Sara Roy, Middle East Center, Harvard University
• Robert Malley, International Crisis Group, Former Special Assistant to President Clinton for Arab-Israeli Affairs, 1998-2001.
($10 admission if you are not registered for the ADC Convention.)
Rally at the Capitol: World Says NO to U.S-Israeli Occupation! 2-4:00pm
March from Capitol Hill to the White House, 4-6:00PM
Cultural Evening
WHERE: National City Christian Church, 5 Thomas Circle NW
WHEN: 7:30-9:30PM
WHAT: Song, dance, and poetry, featuring the hip-hop stylings of Arab Summit. Readings by poets from the new anthology We Begin Here: Poems for Palestine and Lebanon and a special debke performance by the Hurriyah Dance Troupe. (Tickets $10 in advance, $15 at the door.)
Monday, June 11
Lobby Day Training Session
WHERE: Lutheran Church of the Reformation, 212 East Capitol Street, Washington, DC
WHEN: 8:30-10:30AM
Activists Lobbying Day
WHERE: Capitol Hill
WHEN: 10:30AM-5:00PM
WHAT: Lobby Congress to demand peace in the Middle East.
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