Author: Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity

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-Updates-

Dignity Not Detention Act SB 1289 Passes in Assembly

On Tuesday, August 18th, the California State Assembly passed SB 1289, also known as the Dignity Not Detention Act, ending the use of private immigration detention facilities.  This announcement comes just after The Department of Justice announced the phase out of the use of private of prisons.

Sponsored by Senator Lara (D- Bell Gardens,) the Dignity not Detention Act would prohibit modifying any existing contract to extend it’s length, renewing an existing contract, or entering a new contract with private corporations contractor, or vendor to detain immigrants in civil immigration proceedings for profit. This bill would also require all immigrant detention centers in California to follow federal guidelines for operation as currently, there are no federal guidelines.

The Act passed Assembly in a vote 49-28 and it will now return to the Senate. If passed in the Senate, the Act would require approval of Gov. Jerry Brown.

This Act is extremely important as many detention facilities are terribly mismanaged, resulting in constant human rights violations. Aside from being poorly managed most private facilities profit from the number of inmates housed through the use of bed quotas. Bed quotas require facilities to maintain 34,000 spaces for immigrant detention daily. This quota incentivizes the amount of detainees that are housed at facilities.

While this Act will not end detention or immigrant deportation it will end the incentive to increase the numbers of individuals housed.  We all hope that this bill will push authorities to evaluate and consider alternatives to detaining those awaiting deportation.

Categories
-Updates-

Our Unique Method

The Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity has a unique model which combines faith-based organizing, arts and cultural work, and strategic campaigns to help take down the barriers between neighbors, to connect immigrant and U.S.- born Californians to a global perspective on human rights. We mobilize inter-religious communities for concrete social change campaigns, including immigrant rights and integration, economic justice, health care/community wellness and leadership formation.

Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity is rooted in the foundation and inspiration of faith and spiritual traditions working for justice. We are strengthened by uniting people of diverse religious traditions to uphold the sacredness of the human person and to achieve transformative social justice.  We work to change hearts and minds; attitudes and behavior through new narratives and images that uphold dignity, fairness and human integrity and result in a more just and fair society. We do this through (1) faith-rooted grassroots organizing, (2) advocacy, (3) coalition building, (4) strategic communications, and (5) leadership development that is faith rooted and incorporates arts, culture and human rights.

  • We organize, convene and lead truly interfaith/inter-religious campaigns, actions, and events
  • We fill important gaps within key issue work.  For example, within the immigration context, we have been more nimble than other groups; we bring the interfaith voices, we have identified important gaps that no other groups are addressing such as the need for migrant “hospitality housing” and deep work with unaccompanied minors. We not only work toward just policy changes but also we offer direct help
  • We work at the intersection of faith and spirituality; we help people/faith institutions operationalize their faith to advance and achieve justice
  • We strive to be intentionally inter-generational and deeply engage youth
  • We are flexible and often can respond more quickly than larger organizations
  • We strive to be intentionally a “bridge” between immigrant and and nonimmigrant communities and among immigrant communities.  We advocate together and not just for others. Our method is “accompaniment”
  • We are very collaborative. We intentionally seek to work in collaboration with others
  • We both convene and join and support movement building
  • We work to build and strengthen community as well as leadership. We “give voice”
  • We strive to engage in courageous conversations, find common ground and remain open to different opinions when coming from a place of respect and common/shared values
  • We seek to and do work with the most disenfranchised and struggling people/communities
  • We incorporate health & wellness (personal & community-wide) as a source of empowerment
  • We are intentional in incorporating arts, culture and popular education in all aspects of our work.

Our Approach
Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity uses four approaches to address the root causes of migration and economic inequality.  Through community organizing: civic engagement and public witness, we build confidence and power among people who have been rendered voiceless and disenfranchised from the political process. Through leadership development, we incorporate popular education, arts and culture, and healthy practices to support and strengthen leadership formation and capacity building among the most disenfranchised as well as inter-religious allies. Through strategic communication, we lift up the authentic voices of those left at the margins and seek to open hearts and minds toward solution that afford all person the tools and equal opportunities to live full and healthy lives. And through coalition building, we increase our collective impact to achieve transformative social change.

 

 

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Interfaith Prayer Vigils

Monthly Vigils

Monthly Vigils

Interfaith Vigils to Support Immigrant Detainee1st Saturdays of every month from 11am-12noon

 

West County Detention Facility, 5555 Giant Highway, Richmond:
Monthly Vigils image 1
 Vigil attendees at West County Detention Facility
We invite you to join our vigils each month as we gather to pray and bear witness to the pain, suffering, and separation of immigrant detainees, and to call for real and immediate immigration reform. We invite you to join us to pray, sing, and act for just immigration solutions.  Please bring a noisemaker for our sacred Moment of Noise– where we let the detainees know that we have not forgotten them.

 

Why we vigil at the West County Detention Facility in Richmond
We do this to stand in solidarity with the (150-300) people being held here for deportation and thousands in the other 250 detention centers across the country. We know that many have not been convicted of any “crime”, but are charged with a civil immigration offense. We know that detained here and facing deportation are asylum seekers, green card holders, and long term residents. Often the chief breadwinner is taken away, putting children and families in economic jeopardy. We know that ICE’s implementation of our immigration laws makes communities insecure. THEREFORE…
We come here each month, to call attention to our government’s wasteful spending of resources, deporting 315, 943 in FY 2014 (865 people a day), while failing to address root causes of migration. We seek to stop this system of detention and deportation and change our nation’s policies.
We know that all the deportees held here have families, most came not just for a better life, but to survive and support families. Many have fled terrible violence and now face it here, in another form. And now, the children have come, many to reunite with families already here…. and even they, face expedited deportation processes.
We do this to give moral and spiritual support to the families whose loved ones are being held here. We know their trauma can be deep and their lives filled with fear. We seek to give practical advice and counsel on legal, medical, food and housing issues and to be a friendly face. And we also do this to provide opportunity for people directly impacted by our detention and deportation policies to share their truth – to give their testimony so that they know, they are not alone.
We pray together for a just and fair immigration policy closer to what our Statue of Liberty proclaims “Mother of Exiles … Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
We pray, knowing that all our faith traditions call upon us to welcome strangers and aliens, for they are our sisters and brothers and our families, like them, we were once strangers and aliens in this land.
For more information about immigration detention, go to:  Detention Watch Network, CIVIC.

Vigil table