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National Grassroots Immigrant Strategy Conference

National Grassroots Immigrant Strategy Conference



Together, We Build A New National, Broad-Based, Immigrant Rights / Civil Rights Movement!



Friday - Sunday July 28-30, 2006



Ward Circle Building, American University, Washington DC



National Immigrant Solidarity Network http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/2006Conference/





About the Conference The success of May 1st's "A Day Without Immigrants" has been an historical turning point for the immigrant rights movement. The National Immigrant Solidarity Network was one of the main groups who helped to organize the historical Los Angeles March 25th "Gran Marcha" and the national May 1st "A Day Without Immigrants" boycott/strike (Please visit http://www.NoHR4437.org ). At this point it's vitally important for the immigrant rights movement to keep the momentum going, and there's an urgent need for national meeting in which community/grassroots immigrant activists can meet face-to-face to discuss how to build a new national, broad-based, immigrant rights/civil rights movement, and to set a 6-9 month national strategy for actions.



We envision this is a broad-based, multiethnic conference of organizers, and we are inviting organizers from African American, African immigrant, Asian American, Latino/Latina, Arab-Muslim-North African, progressive labor, interfaith, LGBT, student, anti-war/peace and global justice groups from across the country. Our “Ten Points of Unity” are:



- No to the anti-immigrant HR4437/SB 2611 legislations from Congress
- No to militarization of the border
- No to criminalization of immigrant communities
- No to the planned immigrant crackdown across the country
- No to the guest worker program
- No to the Employer Sanction

- Yes to amnesty for undocumented immigrants
- Yes to immigrant family reunification
- Yes to a humane path to citizenship
- Yes to labor rights and living wages for all workers





Latest lists of participants includes:

A World Beyond Capitalism * ACLU of Texas * AFSC (Baltimore, MD)* AFSC (New Jersey, NJ) * AFSC (Portland, OR) * AFSC (Washington, DC) * AFSC Project Voice (Cambridge, MA) * AfterDowningStreet.org * Andy Shallal (Iraqi American activist) * AOL Latino * Boston May Day Coalition * CAIR Coalition * Camp Democracy * Campaign For Labor Rights * Carpenters' District Council of Greater Kansas City and Vicinity * Casa Freehold * Catedral Basilica de Newark * Chelsea Uni‚ndose en Contra de la Guerra * Coalicion por una amnistia general para todos * Code Pink * Comite de Salvadorenos * Detention Project/Asylum Project of Capital Area Immigrants' Rights Coalition * Detention Watch Network * El Centro Hispanoamericano * Fairness And Accuracy In Reporting * Families for Freedom * Forest Hills Community House * Frente Unido Western Mass * Global Exchange * Greater Boston Stop the Wars Coalition * Guyanese-American Workers United * Hispanic Organizations Leadership Alliance * Industrial Workers of the World * Instituto Familiar de la Raza, Inc. * Laborer's International Union of North America * League of United Latin American Citizens * Los Angeles March 25th Coalition * Massachusetts Global Action * MDI-Movimiento por los Derechos de los Inmigrantes * Migration Policy Institute * Mission: Middle East * Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation * National Asian American Student Conference * National Council of La Raza * National Immigrant Solidarity Network * National Immigration Project * National Interfaith Committee For Worker Justice * National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health * National Organization of Women * Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala * New York May 1st Coalition * North American Alliance for Fair Employment * Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition * Pittsburgh Friends of Immigrants * Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign * Queers for Economic Justice * Rescue Community * Rights Working Group * SmartMeme Media Collective * Solidarity Committee of Capital District, NY * Student Immigrant Movement * Tecschange* Tenderloin Neighborhood * Development * UCC Latina Organizing Group * United for a Fair Economy * United For Peace & Justice * United Students Against Sweatshops * University Leadership Initiative * Washington Peace Center * Washtenaw County Workers Center * Western Mass Coalition of Immigrant Rights * Western Mass Global Action Coalition * Woodbridge Workers Committee





Goals of the Conference



1. Keep the momentum gained throughout the country this spring going,



2. National meeting in which community/grassroots immigrant activists can meet face-to-face to discuss how to build a new national, broad-based, immigrant rights/civil rights movement.



3. Set a 6-9 month national strategy plan that unites in a national action campaign that respects our diversity of political positions and strategies.





Lists of Workshops



Organizing Day Labor Center (Casa Freehold)

Developing Immigrant Community Programs (National Organization for Women)

LGBT Caucus (Queers For Economic Justice)



Immigrant Media Strategy, Talking Points Formulation SmartMeMe Media Collective)

Reading Between the Headlines: Learn to analyze news coverage(Fairness And Accuracy In Reporting)



Counter-Minutemen Organizing (Los Angeles March 25th Coalition)

A Multi-Ethnic "Role-Playing" Activist Approach towards Immigrant Education and Understanding (Mission: Middle East)

Detention and Deportation: Overview and Organizing (National Immigration Project/Detention Watch Network)

Women's Caucus (National Organization for Women)

Rights on the Line (American Friends Service Committee)

Low-wage immigrant worker strategies (American Friends Service Committee)

March 25th, May 1st organizing (Los Angeles March 25th Coalition)


How To Do Your Congressional Lobbying (United for Peace and Justice)


Away from Militarization and Towards Human Mobility: Civil Disobedience and Direct Action-Militarization/Diverse Tactics to Achieve Goals (American Civil Liberties Union of Texas)



Planning Camp Democracy (Camp Democracy)

Overview of Latino Immigrant Politics (League of United Latin American Citizens)


Film Showing: Divide We Fall


Latest Updates on the Immigrant Legislation - An Introduction (National Immigrant Solidarity Network)

Panel: Immigrant Student Organizing (National Council of La Raza, National Asian American Student Conference)



Panel: Labor Union and Immigrant Organizing (Carpenters' District Council of Greater Kansas City and Vicinity)

Multi-Ethnic Organizing (Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign)



Acknowledging the Role of Faith in Addressing Social Justice and Defending Immigrant Rights

Trade and Immigration: Organizing around the failed "Free Trade Model" (Campaign for Labor Rights)



Panel Dialogue: Our May 1 Experience



Panel: Faith & Action: Our Spiritual Responsibility for Protecting Immigrant Rights (Imam Mahdi Bray, Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation)





+END+

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National Grassroots Immigrant Strategy Conference

Together, We Build A New National, Broad-Based, Immigrant Rights/Civil
Rights Movement!
Friday - Sunday July 28-30
American University, Washington DC.
Called by National Immigrant Solidarity Network

For Registration and More Information
http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/2006Conference/

If this is not hate... what is?

MS: ANTI-ABORTIONISTS' BURNING OF QURAN CALLED 'HATEFUL' - TOP
Jean Gordon, Clarion-Ledger, 7/20/06
http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
AID=/20060720/NEWS/607200393/1001/news

Jackson Muslims and a statewide interfaith group reacted with
disgust Wednesday to reports that the national anti-abortion group
Operation Save America burned a Quran during a Tuesday night
gathering at a Pearl church.

"A group that acts in such a hateful way does not really represent
the word of God," said Emad Al-Turk, co-founder of the International
Museum of Muslim Cultures in Jackson.

Activists from Operation Save America, formerly known as Operation
Rescue, have been in Jackson since Saturday for eight days of
protests against the state's only abortion clinic, the Jackson
Women's Health Organization in the Fondren neighborhood.

During a demonstration at the Capitol on Tuesday, anti-abortion
activists tore up pages from the Quran, the Muslim holy book, along
with a gay pride flag and copies of six U.S. Supreme Court rulings
related to religion in public schools, sodomy and abortion.

The group intended to burn the items at the Capitol but couldn't
because it didn't have a permit, said Operation Save America
volunteer Pat McEwen, a retired college professor from Palm Bay, Fla.

Instead, the activists burned the Quran and other items Tuesday
evening in the parking lot outside Making Jesus Real Church in
Pearl, McEwen said. Police confirmed the burning. (MORE)

Real Christians Fight Intolerance

Real Christians Fight Intolerance
By Rev. Jim Rigby, AlterNet
July 14, 2006

Progressive Christians tend to be nonjudgmental and to feel that
challenging the intolerance of others is itself intolerant. For that
reason we often sit by silently when Fundamentalist Christians
criticize homosexual persons. We tend to think of this as being open
minded.

Not that long ago, it was considered consistent to be a Christian,
and yet, hold slaves. The day came when slavery was understood as an
affront to the gospel itself. I want to suggest that the day has come
when Christians must declare that gay bashing is an attack on the
gospel and that real Christians do not participate in any form of
discrimination.

Several years ago, I was asked to do the funeral of a gay man who had
been beaten to death in a hate crime. At that time, I had never
thought deeply about the danger many gay, lesbian, bisexual and
transgender people face in this culture. That week as I worked on the
service, I kept hearing a local "Christian" radio station blaming gay
and lesbian people for everything wrong in America. By the end of the
week I understood the link between religious hate speech and the
funeral I was performing.

I know that critics of homosexuality do not consider themselves to be
hateful. They would say they "love the sinner but hate the sin." If
the shoe were on the other foot, however, and someone were attacking
their families, trying to take their children away, and constantly
working to pass legislation to deprive them of basic civil rights, at
some point they would understand that "homophobia" is too mild a word
for such harassment. "Hatred" is the only proper term.

I was raised in Dallas, Texas and had classmates who were in the
Klan. I remember that they did not consider themselves to be
attacking other people. They perceived themselves to be defenders of
Christian America. Their "religion" consisted of an unrelenting
attack on people who were black, Jewish or homosexual. If anyone
challenged these views, these Klan members considered themselves
under attack and believed that their right to free exercise of
religion was being threatened. In other words, they felt that
harassing other people was a protected __expression of their own
religious faith.

In the Gospel, biblical literalists and judgmental people were the
negative example in many of the stories. The point of those stories
was to teach us the hypocrisy of judgmental religion. When a woman
was caught in adultery, the Biblical literalists lined up to protect
family values. They pointed out that the Bible literally says that
adulterers are to be stoned. If Jesus took the Bible seriously, they
claimed, he would have to participate in the mandated biblical
punishment of an adulteress.

Instead of following scripture, Jesus tells the woman to get her life
together and tells everyone else to drop their stones of judgment.
The only way to take this story seriously is to conclude that real
Christians don't use the bible to condemn other people.

It violates the teaching of Christ to say that God will get angry if
America does not confront homosexuality as a sin. Jesus did not
mention homosexuality and it is a lie to say he did. Furthermore,
Jesus said "Judge not or you will be judged." These false prophets
are saying "Judge or else you will be judged."

Jesus was kind and understanding, but he was not silent about those
who abused the vulnerable. He called them "wolves in sheep's
clothing." Christians must follow the example of Jesus and confront
those vicious predators who use the Christian religion as a
camouflage for bullying. We must be as understanding and kind as we
can be, but to be tolerant of the oppression of others is not true
tolerance.

I believe the time has come to say that genuine followers of Jesus
Christ do not participate in discrimination against gay and lesbian
persons. Is it intolerant to challenge intolerance? Are we doing the
same thing as those we are challenging?

Gay bashing is not just an opinion, it is an assault. Just as the
Klan did, religious fundamentalists have a right to believe that
homosexuality is a sin. They even have a right to preach a message of
hate. But when they harass people in public, it is time for
Christians to rise to challenge their intolerance. We have an
obligation to protect our neighbors from harassment and slander,
especially when it is done in our name.

It is time to say that gay bashing is not only wrong, it is
unchristian. If Christianity is grace, then judgment is the ultimate
apostasy. If Christianity is love, then cruelty is the ultimate
heresy.

The Rev. Jim Rigby is pastor of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in
Austin, Tex. He can be reached at jrigby0000@aol.com.

Hate and Godlessness in Hazleton, PA

From the Los Angeles Times

City Vents Anger at Illegal Immigrants
Hazleton, Pa., creates one of the strictest laws in the U.S., polarizing its whites and Latinos.

By Ellen Barry
Times Staff Writer

July 14, 2006

HAZLETON, Pa. — Standing outside City Hall in the gathering dark, Norman Tarantino felt, for once, that he was lucky to live in Hazleton.

Most of his friends had moved away, over the years, convinced that the old coal city's best days were behind it. But as of Thursday night, Tarantino said, Hazleton once again has something to be proud of: It is the most hostile environment in America for illegal immigrants.

Not 20 feet away stood Daniel Jorge, a Dominican immigrant who moved his family to Hazleton last year after 25 years in New York City. Jorge, a real estate agent, was wondering how he would break the news to his wife, who had been enchanted with the small-town friendliness she found in Hazleton, a small city in the hills 80 miles northwest of Philadelphia.

"I'm sad. I loved it here," Jorge said. He gazed at the police officers lined up in the middle of Church Street, separating crowds of white and Latino demonstrators. "I never in my wildest dreams thought I would see this here in this city."

By a vote of 4 to 1, Hazleton's City Council on Thursday approved the Illegal Immigration Relief Act, which imposes severe penalties on landlords who rent space to illegal immigrants, suspends the licenses of businesses that employ them, and declares English the city's official language.

The ordinance has brought celebrity status to Hazleton's mayor, Louis J. Barletta, and has prompted a ripple of proposed new laws in neighboring communities.

In Florida, the communities of Avon Park and Palm Bay will vote on similar laws, as will the city of Escondido in California.

The law has also attracted a legal challenge from the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, which has promised to sue the city on the grounds that the ordinance unconstitutionally infringes on federal jurisdiction over immigration.

Local Latino activists warn that the vote could mark an ugly turning point in Hazleton, whose Latino minority has grown over the last decade to constitute about 30% of the population.

"What I worry is that this will be a pretext for people to allow their racist feelings to show," said David Vaida, an attorney in Allentown, Pa., who signed the legal challenge to Barletta. "It will allow people to take that deep, dark side of them and let it come out. It will pit neighbor against neighbor, and then the city will be worse off."

But the mood in City Hall was upbeat Thursday; white residents exploded into applause when Barletta strode into the chamber, wearing a bulletproof vest under his suit jacket. They yelled "Yes!" when a local Latino leader asked whether they would deport U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants, and cheered again when City Council President Joe Yannuzzi compared illegal immigrants to burglars.

"If I come home and find someone in my home, is he just an unwanted guest? Must I keep him there and take care of him?" he asked. "I say he has committed a crime, and should be treated like a criminal."

Under the new law — which is a modified version of a ballot initiative proposed in San Bernardino — anyone seeking to rent a dwelling in the city will have to apply to the city for a residency license, and submit to an investigation of citizenship status. Landlords found renting to people without licenses will be fined $1,000 a day. Business owners found hiring, renting property to, or providing goods and services to illegal immigrants will lose their business permit for five years on a first offense and 10 years on a second.

Barletta, whose grandfather hauled coal with a horse and wagon, said Thursday's vote was the culmination of years of complaints from constituents.

"There's no place for me to hide in a small city," he said. "I get it in the grocery store, I get it at the lunch counter, when I get my morning coffee, when I'm pumping gas.

"People are begging me, because we are losing the one asset that this city has to offer — our quality of life."

Hazleton was a shrinking and mostly white city when Latinos began to arrive.

Older residents reminisce about the miners who emerged every evening from the "40 shaft" and streamed down Diamond Avenue past the Italian bars — Andruzzi's, Fidule's, Yannuzzi's — while the smell of meatballs hung in the air. People lived in tight ethnic clusters — Donegal Hill for the Irish immigrants and Nanny Goat Hill for the Italians.

The city reached its peak population in the 1940s, at 38,000, then began a steady decline as mining and textiles work disappeared. The 2000 census showed a population of 23,000, with a median age of 40.

Immigrants, flowing in from New York and New Jersey, changed that trajectory, bringing the city's population back up to between 30,000 and 31,000.

The influx brought economic growth. Donna Palermo, president of the Greater Hazleton Chamber of Commerce, said Latino immigrants built 50 to 60 new businesses in the city's downtown and helped boost the value of some homes to $90,000 from $40,000. In an October 2005 interview with the Northeast Pennsylvania Business Journal, Barletta said the population boom had brought the city's economy to its healthiest state in decades.

But tension surrounded the newcomers from the beginning. Elderly residents on fixed incomes struggled to catch up with the higher cost of living; a school built for 1,800 students tried to absorb 2,500.

When John Quigley, a Democratic mayor, lost his reelection bid in 1995, it was amid rumors that he had rented billboards in New York to recruit Latinos to move to town in exchange for government payments of $1,000 a head. Quigley called that rumor "an urban legend … conjured up by some gutter politicians," but many in Hazleton believe it.

The most persistent complaints center on crime, which most residents interviewed agreed had become a more serious problem in the last year.

"They try to recruit these children into gangs; we're having graffiti sprayed on houses now," Barletta said. "This is not the same population I was defending when they moved in here."

Barletta, 50, said he could put his finger on the exact moment when his perspective on immigration changed. On May 10, a 29-year-old man, Derek Kichline, was fatally shot outside his home on East Chestnut Street, culminating in the arrest of four illegal Dominican immigrants; that same day, a 14-year-old fired a gun at the Pine Street playground.

Barletta said he stayed awake that whole night, thinking about the city he grew up in, where "a playground was sacred ground."

"I laid there and stared at the ceiling. I literally prayed. I realized I had to do something drastic to save the city. If I just let this go and sat back, this wouldn't be a city that anyone wanted to live in," he said. "I felt almost hopeless at that point, watching my city being destroyed right before my eyes."

Latino advocates say Barletta has never produced evidence that illegal immigrants are responsible for a disproportionate number of crimes.

Agapito Lopez, an eye surgeon originally from Puerto Rico, said the two crimes most often cited by Barletta — fatal shootings on October 20, 2005, and May 10 — involved a total of eight illegal immigrants, and should not be applied to a population of 11,000.

"Crime has been here for a long time. It has been white crime, and now we're starting to see brown crime," Lopez said.

Statistics compiled by the Pennsylvania State Police Uniform Crime Reporting System show a reduction in the number of total arrests in Hazleton over the last five years, from 1,458 in 2000 to 1,263 in 2005. Whereas the number of thefts and drugrelated crimes has risen from a low point of 80 in 2001 to 127 in 2005, the total number of reported rapes, robberies, homicides and assaults has decreased since 2000.

Barletta acknowledges that he can't point to data proving that illegal immigrants are responsible for most of the city's crimes, or even establish how many illegal immigrants live here. But he said that any time police spent responding to calls involving illegal immigrants was a waste of city money, and "we are arresting illegal individuals much more often than we ever have."

Over the last month — since Barletta introduced his proposed ordinance — relationships in Hazleton have been remapped, Latinos say.

White people feel free to speak openly about their annoyance with immigrants, said Jessica Cruz, who waits tables in two local diners.

Cruz sputtered with anger recalling a recent day when she greeted three friends in Spanish, and a customer looked up from his seat, pointed his finger at her and told her to speak English. Another customer looked into the kitchen and said he couldn't wait until Immigration came to take away the Mexicans.

"Every day, he is eating, and the Mexicans are cooking," said Cruz, 26. It's the mayor, she said, who "gives support for talking like that."

Kim Resovszky, 35, feels edgy too, but for different reasons. A family that looks Latino just moved into a house across the street — mother, father, two kids. They seem nice, she said. But who knows what to expect from the rest of the summer?

"It's scary. Are you going to see more gunfire?" she asked. "There have been drive-by shootings, for example."

Resovszky said she supported the ordinance, as did virtually all of the city's white residents.

"The only ones who are against it are the Hispanics," she said, "and that's because it's against them."