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Court Order- Release the Children in Detention

(CNN)The US government must release migrant children held in the country's three family detention centers by mid-July due to the coronavirus pandemic, a federal judge ruled Friday.

The ruling is part of an ongoing effort to release immigrants held in detention who are particularly susceptible to the coronavirus given the confined settings at facilities and the potential for spread. 

In her order, Judge Dolly M. Gee of the US District Court for the Central District of California called for the swift removal of migrant children who are at one of the three family detention centers, which are run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and located in Texas and Pennsylvania. 

The children must be released with their parents or to "available suitable sponsors or other available COVID-free non-congregate settings" with the consent of their parents or guardians, Judge Gee said. 

As of June 8, there were 124 children in ICE custody, according to the ruling. The ruling, which calls for children to be let go by July 17, applies to children who have resided at the three facilities for more than 20 days. 

The efforts, Gee wrote, must be made with "deliberate speed.”

As of Friday afternoon, there are around 8,858 detainees in ICE custody who have been tested for coronavirus and there are 751 confirmed cases in custody, according to the agency's statistics.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement "is currently reviewing the most recent order issued by the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California yesterday evening" in which the judge mandated the federal government release migrant children by mid-July, according to an ICE spokesperson.

Last month, House Democratic lawmakers urged the Trump administration in a letter to explain reported incidents of ICE asking migrant families in detention to choose between staying with their children or releasing them. 

Advocates and immigration lawyers shared anecdotes of detained families distraught over their encounters with ICE, describing meetings between parents and ICE officers regarding whether their children would remain in custody with the parent or be turned over to a sponsor in the US.

Families detained in all three ICE detention facilities -- Berks in Pennsylvania, South Texas (Dilley) and Karnes County Family Residential Centers in Texas -- shared similar stories. Children at the facilities range from 1 year old to 17 years old, according to lawyers and advocates who provide legal assistance.

"The Administration must stop using this public health crisis as a means for implementing unlawful and inhumane immigration policies. In these extraordinary times, human suffering need not be compounded by locking up families or instilling fear in the hearts of migrant parents," read the letter, directed to acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Matt Albence.

ICE denied instituting a binary choice or separating any parents from their children "pursuant to 'binary choice.'"

This story has been updated with a statement from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Washington, DC - The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) welcomed the long-overdue decision announced by Judge Dolly M. Gee of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California to release children being held in three detention centers after arriving here with their families as refugees seeking asylum.

“This is a true life and death matter for children being held against the will during a raging pandemic,” says Domingo Garcia, National President. “Innocent families’ lives have been destroyed waiting at the border for help that never came and for many parents who had no choice but to watch helplessly as their children were being taken from them. Now, COVID-19 has been sweeping through the detention centers at an alarming rate and we need to get the children out as fast as possible,” said Garcia.

Judge Gee’s ruling strongly criticizes the Trump administration and mandates release of the children without any further delay. “The family residential centers are on fire and there is no more time for half measures,” wrote Gee. Her order affects 124 children being held in three centers; one in Pennsylvania and two in Texas. The coronavirus has affected large numbers of ICE detainees. The latest reports show more than 2,500 people in custody have tested positive for COVID-19.

“LULAC hasn’t stopped fighting to free every child and family in detention by ICE,” says Garcia. “Tonight’s order by Judge Gee proves there are jurists on the bench who agree that these are people facing a threat to their very lives and they need to get out. We won’t stop until the centers, all of them, are shut down and with them, one of the darkest chapters in our history,” he added.

I assume that the Trump Administration will appeal this to the Trump judges on the Supreme Court.

DACA-TPS Survive for Now- Real Solution Needed

For now, ‘Dreamers’ will continue to be protected from deportation, but a permanent solution is urgently needed

    

Almost eight years to the day after President Obama announced his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals initiative, better known as DACA, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has issued a decision in Department of Homeland Security et al. v. Regents of the University of California et al.—the litigation concerning whether the Trump administration’s attempt to end DACA was carried out lawfully. In a stunning rebuke to the Trump administration’s ham-handed rescission of DACA, the highest court in the land—which has a majority of staunchly conservative justices—ruled 5–4 that the Trump administration failed to comply with the requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) when ending DACA. In doing so, SCOTUS upheld the findings of three lower courts that also determined the APA had not been complied with and that had allowed DACA to remain in effect via a nationwide injunction while the legal challenges continued. As a result, DACA will continue to exist, for now.

The immediate practical impact of the SCOTUS ruling on DACA cannot be overstated: It means 650,000 undocumented U.S. residents who were brought to the United States as children won’t lose their current protection from deportation. They can continue to attend school and work lawfully, and they can keep contributing to their communities and local economies.

The DACA initiative didn’t provide a permanent legal status, only a temporary reprieve from deportation that can be renewed every two years, along with the ability to obtain a Social Security Number and an employment authorization document. Nevertheless, this stopgap measure that DACA represents, which keeps immigrants from being deported to a country they can barely remember, has resulted in significant economic and educational achievements for DACA recipients. Being able to work lawfully and without the specter of deportation looming over them means DACA recipients are able to have basic labor rights, which in turn have translated into wage gains. How big are the wage gains? According to a study and survey conducted by Professor Tom Wong and United We Dream, the National Immigration Law Center, and the Center for American Progress, the hourly wages earned by DACA recipients increased 86% since they received DACA, from $10.46 per hour to $19.45 per hour. The wage gains were even higher for DACA recipients who are 25 and older—128%—from $10.64 per hour to $23.70. Wage gains of this magnitude can literally be the difference between being in poverty and entering the middle class.

By this measure alone, DACA has been one of the most successful immigrant integration programs ever, rivaled only by the legalization for unauthorized immigrants that was passed into law as part of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, by which approximately 2.7 million immigrants were legalized and allowed to adjust to lawful permanent resident status.

Without a doubt, SCOTUS’s decision on DACA is a massive victory for the immigrants’ rights movement and should be celebrated. Nevertheless, the excitement and relief collectively felt by DACA recipients and the rest of the immigrants’ rights community must quickly be tempered by the reality of what lies ahead.

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DACA Continues

The National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights celebrates the Supreme Court's ruling against the Trump Administration's challenge to DACA. This is a victory for the hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients and their families, this is a victory for all of us!

NNIRR recognizes the courageous and principled contributions of DACA leaders to the movement for immigrant rights, and we stand in solidarity as we demand full and permanent protections for DACA recipients, their families and all others with vulnerable immigration status.

We know the fight for justice does not end with this decision. Trump and USCIS should immediately restore the DACA program, process renewals, and new DACA applications. We continue to urge Congress to pass permanent protections and solutions that lead to full rights and permanent immigration status for DACA, TPS recipients, and others under threat of deportation.

Our elation by this victory is tempered by the public health and policing crises that have been particularly devastating for communities of color. During this public health crisis, Congress must include ALL immigrants in stimulus packages moving through Congress to address COVID-19 impacts on communities. Free COVID-19 testing, treatment and services should be provided for all people, regardless of immigration status.

With national attention turned to the racist and xenophobic underpinnings of law enforcement, we also urge that ICE & CBP be defunded and that any immigration law enforcement be aligned with the systemic and just transformation of all policing programs.

Today we take a moment to celebrate and reflect on this victory. We will continue to act in solidarity, and to organize for human-rights based immigration reforms and racial justice.

The next important step is to Defeat Trump and his regime.

Take a moment to appreciate the hard fought victories of activists, but let’s redouble our efforts to pass legislation that can protect Dreamers once and for all. Sign your name to help us build grassroots support for a new DREAM Act.

Defend DACA And All Undocumented

Editor’s Note: On Monday morning, Latino Rebels received the following open letter for publication. It has since been published on Medium by the organizers who drafted the letter and gathered signatures.

On the eighth anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, also known as DACA, we’re releasing this open letter to the immigrant rights movement with a clear demand: not a single person or organization should use the rescission of DACA to seek compromises that further fund any immigration enforcement in exchange for relief for some of us. Do not sell out immigrant communities.

We are a group of DACA recipients, undocumented or formerly undocumented allies with more than ten years of experience and knowledge rooted in organizing and community work. Our politics have expanded and shifted beyond our own lived experiences.

The immigrant rights movement must also commit to fighting for justice for all communities of color, including Black communities—who are disproportionately impacted by deportations. We believe that this is the right moment to echo the Black Lives Movement’s demand to defund the police and be clear that we must also abolish ICE.

Contrary to popular belief, President Obama didn’t announce DACA out of the goodness of his heart. Undocumented immigrant youth and our communities organized and fought to stop our own deportations one by one, organized sit-ins at his 2012 re-election campaign offices, protested and marched, and engaged in civil disobedience across the country. We organized actions calling for #Not1More deportations, such as the Undocubus that culminated in Charlotte, NC at the 2012 DNC Convention. Many of these tactics we learned from the Civil Rights Movement and the fight for Black liberation—all of which made DACA possible.

Simply put, undocumented activists young and old put ourselves at risk and made DACA a reality.

Even with DACA, three million people were deported under the Obama administration. Those deportations continue to this date, and it’s gotten worse.

Under President Trump, dozens of undocumented immigrants have been murdered at the hands of CBP and ICE, including Roxsana Hernández and Johana Medina, two trans women seeking asylum, multiple children, including Claudia Patrica Gómez González, Carlos Gregorio Hernández Vásquez, Jakelin Caal Maquín, indigenous Guatemalan children. Thousands of children are not accounted for once separated from their parents in the hands of CBP. Racist government institutions act with complete impunity, and we have seen the rise of white supremacy targeting Black people, communities of color and immigrant communities.

We are about to witness the Supreme Court slash DACA and put about 650,000 DACA recipients, including many of us, at risk of deportation. But this time we cannot do business as usual.

As the uprising across the country in support of Black lives continues to shift the country’s political conscience, we want to acknowledge that Black immigrants are cruelly targeted by this country’s immigration policies. We support Black organizers and communities that are leading the protests and marches across the United States and the world to demand justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, and are calling for the police to be defunded and for governments to invest those resources in Black communities.

Many of us started organizing to save our communities as youth, and as the years have gone by, we’ve seen the broad immigrant rights movement be co-opted and divided based on narratives of who’s deserving (the model dreamer) and who’s not. We’ve seen organizations try to strike deals with Democrats and Republicans without undocumented people at the table or at the expense of the most vulnerable in our communities.

We are here to remind all DACA recipients, mainstream immigrant rights organizations, undocumented people, and allies to look inward as you move forward in this critical movement.

We make the following demands of leaders of immigrant rights organizations and politicians who are thinking of using the rescission of DACA to seek compromises on our community’s behalf. And we hope that these demands are widely heard by our own community as well:

• Stop using narratives that promote anti-Blackness and that pit us against the movement for Black Lives as there are Black undocumented immigrants. You must fully embrace the movement for Black Lives and that means embracing Black undocumented immigrants too.
• No more legislation, backdoor deals, or compromises with politicians who have a history of being anti-immigrant or who continue to uphold the “model or good immigrant” narrative and criminalizes the rest of us.
• #Not1More means exactly that, not one more of our people deported, murdered, violated, or abused by ICE, the police, and Customs and Border Patrol.
• Undocumented people and those directly impacted by this issue must be the strategists, organizers, spokespeople, and architects of our movement.
• Recognize that the solutions will come from those who are directly affected and not from DC. We know the problem because we live them on a daily basis and therefore we have the solutions.
• It is overdue for the movement to evolve and that will only happen if we are all empowered to take action and not wait for immigrant rights institutions to tell us to do so.
• It is imperative that organizations talk about how the U.S. foreign policies of intervention and destabilization of our home countries is what forces most of us to come here. Our families “seek a better future” here because the U.S. forces us to come here.

The Trump administration decided to end this program as a way to use immigrant youth as a bargaining chip to enact his racist immigration agenda. We will not let this happen. DACA recipients will not trade our safety and well-being for the criminalization of Black, Native, and People of Color.

We ask everyone to not look away and to join us in a day of action on the day of the SCOTUS DACA decision. No matter what the decision is, we will:

• Join the Black Lives Matter movement in a demand for the government to #DefundThePolice across the country and reinvest in housing, education, economic support, climate justice, healthcare, and mental health services.
• Demand the federal government to defund ICE and CBP as a first step to #AbolishICE.
• Demand for Trump to resign.

We must remember that the police and ICE are part of the same systems that murder, incarcerate and deport Black, Brown and People of Color. We must organize to abolish ICE and defund the police.

Join us on this day of action and let’s fight like hell for all of us!

Individuals
Jorge Gutierrez
Erika Andiola
Nancy Meza
Lucia Allain
Carlos Rojas Rodriguez
Justino Mora
Juana Guzman
Julio Salgado
Aly Wane
Belén Sisa
Jonathan Jayes-Green
Neidi Dominguez
Carolina Canizales
Nicole Solis-Sison
Jose Manuel Vasquez
Barbara Elena Sahagún
Renata Mauriz
Yadira Hernandez
Set Hernandez Rongkilyo
Maria Mayorga
Cindy Agustin
Miriam O. Nunez Valdovinos
Dorian Gomez Pestana
Antonio Ortuno
Ruben Barreto
Isaias Vasquez
Karla Estrada
Emilio Vicente
Dago Bailon
Monica Reyes
Anthony Ng
Isabel O’Neal
Karina Ruiz
Oscar Uriel Zarate
Mario De Leon
Aiko Marcial Rivera
Aldair Arriola Gomez
Marcos Nieves
Lilia Rebeca Roman Mijares
Yadira Alonzo
Jose Salazar
Maria Garcia
Juan Ruiz
Ayla Roman
Pedro Torres
Jorge Resendez
Luis Gomez<
Berenise Ruiz Almanza
Alejandro Ortega
Pedro Carrillo
Yadira Alonzo
Lucia Yao
Alberto Villanueva
Chandler Sanchez
Maria Rangel Leon
Yael Pineda
Josefina Flores
Oscar J. Luna
Guerline M Jozef
Madelyn Kamholz
Christina Thompson
Heather Hunt
Karen Perez
Pamela Reséndiz Trujano
Antonia Rivera

Organizations
Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement
Haitian Bridge Alliance
RAICES
Padres y Jóvenes Unidos Action Fund
Undocumented Filmmakers Collective
Trans Queer Pueblo
DREAM Iowa
Arizona Dream Act Coalition
Progressive Democrats of America
Compton Tenants Union
Immigrants Rights Working Group -DSA

Defund, Dismantel the Sacramento County Jail System

For months now our County Board of Supervisors have failed to implement any way for our community to be heard in their decision-making process (outside of submitting e-comments), so we hope you can join us on Monday for a community-created space for public comment so that they can hear us well before they make their decisions on Tuesday. Why must we pressure Sacramento County Board of Supervisors to defund law enforcement, in addition to the City Council? - Sacramento County is the body that approves the budget for the Sheriff’s Department and its operations of our two jails — the Main Jail downtown, and RCCC jail in Elk Grove.  - All local law enforcement agencies (CA Highway Patrol, City Police Departments, and Sac County Sheriff's Deputies) incarcerate community members in Sacramento County jails, as the first stop post-arrest and pre-trial, and conditions inside are known to be some of the worst in the state. Defunding police on the County level also means defunding cages. - Sacramento Sheriff’s Department currently receives over $372 million dollars every year, and over one third of the entire budget, and their budget increases every year. - Sacramento County recently approved a $7 million dollar design/build contract to begin designing a new jail tower behind  the Main Jail downtown. This is just the beginning of what we know will be an extremely expensive project, with devastating human and financial costs. We demand the Board of Supervisors cancel the contract and invest the $7 million in community-based resources.  - Sac County’s  jail population was reduced by over 30% due to COVID-19 related releases, and the County should be focused on continuing down this path by investing in housing, mental health care, diversion and re-entry efforts led by impacted people — not giving more money to the Sheriff’s or Probation Department. - Sacramento County has been given $181 million through the CARES Act, which needs to be spent by December 2020. These funds have not yet been allocated to anything in particular, and we need to remind our representatives that none of this funding should go to the Sheriff’s Department, the DA, or Probation. These funds should be allocated to support Black communities, affordable and permanent supportive housing, mental health care, and community-led public safety programs.

Decarcerate Sacramento supports the demands put forth by Black Justice Sacramento and 8 To Abolition, which are based on the understanding that the only way to diminish police violence is to reduce contact between the public and the police, and to shift resources away from law enforcement entirely. 1. Defund the police 2. Demilitarize our communities 3. Remove police from schools 4. Free people from jails & prisons 5. Repeal laws that criminalize survival 6. Invest in community self-governance 7. Provide safe housing for everyone 8. Invest in care, not cops

Even the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Association blatantly admits that Sacramento funds law enforcement at the expense of almost everything else, and their mentality is to protect their money and power, not us. Check out this quote from Kevin Mickelson, the Association president, talking about why the Sheriff’s Department makes campaign donations to pro-law enforcement candidates: “Every budget cycle, the sheriff’s department is the largest item that the board has discretionary powers over. If there are any other hot button topics that people are going to want to fund, there’s really only three places that they can take that money from: the district attorney, the probation department or the sheriff’s department.”  And that is what we intend to do.

DETAILS FOR MONDAY’S PRESS CONFERENCE/PUBLIC COMMENT EVENT: Facebook event link here. To participate in person: - Meet at 700 H Street @ 10AM (side of County Administrative building closest to H Street).

Financial Assistance for the Undocumented

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Disaster Relief Assistance for Immigrants

In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, California is providing one-time state-funded disaster relief assistance to undocumented adults who are ineligible for other forms of assistance, including assistance under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and pandemic unemployment benefits, because of their immigration status. This state funding is expected to reach about 150,000 undocumented adults.

The California Department of Social Services has selected twelve immigrant-serving nonprofit organizations to help individuals apply for and receive this disaster relief assistance in their region. An undocumented adult who qualifies can receive $500 in direct assistance, with a maximum of $1000 in assistance per household. Read frequently asked questions.

Nonprofit organizations will be assisting individuals until June 30, 2020. Please call the nonprofit organization listed for your county below. We appreciate your patience as nonprofit organizations are responding to a high volume of phone calls.

Organization Name	Hotline Number	Website	Region/Counties	Individuals to be Served
California Human Development Corporation	(707) 228-1338	www.californiahumandevelopment.org/	NorthernCalifornia: Alpine, Amador, Butte, Calaveras, Colusa, Del Norte, El Dorado, Glenn, Humboldt, Lake, Lassen, Mendocino, Modoc, Napa, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Shasta, Sierra, Siskiyou, Solano, Sonoma Tehama, Trinity	10,000
Catholic Charities of California	(415) 324-1011	www.cceb.org	Bay Area:  Alameda, Contra Costa	30,000
Catholic Charities of California	(415) 324-1011	www.catholiccharitiessf.org/	Bay Area:  Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo
Catholic Charities of California	(415) 324-1011	www.catholiccharitiesscc.org/	Bay Area: Santa Clara
Mixteco/ Indigena Community Organizing Project (MICOP)	Santa Barbara County: (805) 519-7776 (805) 791-2003 Ventura County: (805) 519-7774 (805) 256 -1001	www.mixteco.org/drai/	Central Coast:  Santa Barbara, Ventura	10,000
Community Action Board Santa Cruz	(877) 282-7174	www.cabinc.org/	Central Coast:  Monterey, San Benito, San Luis Obispo, Santa Cruz
United Farm Workers Foundation (UFWF)	(877) 527-6660	Español: http://www.sisepuede.org/drai English: http://www.ufwfoundation.org/drai	Central Valley: Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, Merced, Tulare, Mono	20,000
California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation (CRLAF)	(877) 557-0521	www.crlaf.org/drai	Central Valley: Mariposa, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Sutter, Tuolumne, Yolo, Yuba
Asian Americans Advancing Justice	(213) 241-8880	www.advancingjustice-la.org	Los Angeles, Orange	55,000
Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights - CHIRLA	(213) 201-8700 (213) 395-9547	www.chirla.org	Los Angeles, Orange
Central American Resource Center - CARECEN	(213) 315-2659	https://www.carecen-la.org/drai