Author: Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity

Categories
Updates

2021 Sustainer Drive for Liberation!

Become a monthly donor to sustain organizing, advocacy, and leadership for liberation and justice! 

Your sustained gift provides accompaniment to people targeted by the immigration system and carceral system with concrete support and a community of care.  Your donation builds leadership and lasting solutions that protect the rights and dignity of immigrants and those  incarcerated. Your support pushes forward policies that reject a framework of punishment and criminalization in favor of community-based solutions guided by values of solidarity, compassion and justice.  ‘

We are ending immigration detention and mass incarceration by building the power of individuals, people of faith and congregations:

  • Over 2000 spiritually rooted leaders and volunteers  
  • More than 1000 newly arrived immigrants and incarcerated people supported and reunited with loved ones.
  • 250 congregations and partner organizations 

Your monthly donation contributes to:

  • $25 Monthly: You can sustain advocacy for just policies to reimagine immigration and public safety.
  • $50 Monthly: You can provide training of volunteers to accompany newly arrived immigrants & advocate for families directly impacted by mass incarceration.
  • $100 Monthly: You can build long term leadership development of people targeted by the immigration system and carceral system to shape and guide strategies for change.

Gifts for Monthly Sustainers!

New monthly donors will receive a special Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity thank you gift.

New $25 monthly donors:  will receive the new IM4HI Sticker with slogan “All Are Sacred Across Bars and Borders.”  
New $50 monthly donors: will receive the brand new 2021 IM4HI T-shirts with beautiful, original artwork by Bay Area Artist Alex Phelps! It includes our slogan “All People Are Sacred Across Bars and Borders.” Current monthly donors will receive a T-shirt if they recommit and increase their gift.   (We will follow up with you to find out your size.)

More Donor Info

  • Strengthen the Safety Net during COVID-19: Donate to the IM4HI Migrant & Prisoner Emergency Support Fund
  • Want to update your Interfaith Movement donor profile? Change your name, address, card number, ongoing donation amount or date? Log in to DonorBox.org.
  • Prefer to send a paper check? Our mailing address is: Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity (IM4HI), 310 – 8th Street, Suite 310, Oakland, CA 94607-4253
  • Did you know? If you are 70½ or older and have an IRA, the IRA Charitable Rollover provides you with a unique opportunity to make charitable gifts to organizations like IM4HI. Such gifts are sent directly from your IRA and count toward your required annual distribution, tax free. If you have any questions, contact your financial institution or call us for more info.

Thank you for standing up for the dignity and sacredness of all people.

Categories
IM4HI Vision

Reframing the Border Crisis: Compassion and Dignity Now

 

Photo: School of the Americas Watch, Encuentro at the Border 2017

by Rev. Deborah Lee & Cecilia Vasquez

As people of faith, we believe that people everywhere must have the fundamental human rights to land, economic security, health, education, and dignity.  People should have the right to migrate and the right to stay home. 

Recently the news has been filled with headlines stirring up familiar tropes and fears of an invasion of non-white immigrants at our southern border.   Some are politically using vulnerable immigrants to create a “crisis” at the US-Mexico border. The real crisis is not at the border, but rather the global context that forces people to migrate.  Inequality, climate change, neoliberal economic policies, and militarization are the root causes of poverty and migration in much of the world. In order to address any problem systemically, we must address the root causes, particularly as defined by indigenous people, women’s groups, and grassroots communities on the ground.  We must acknowledge what has been the role of the US government and corporations in exacerbating the problem. We must address root causes with co-responsibility, collective action, and community care so people aren’t forced to migrate.

This Could Be Done Differently

 As a country, we have enough resources to welcome new immigrants and respond in a humane, responsible, and compassionate manner. The Biden Administration promised to restore asylum rights and have a different approach to refugees and migrants. But in March, 17,345 people who came to the border as part of a family were expelled, a full third of all families.  Although President Biden has ceased the Trump practice of expelling unaccompanied children which was blocked by the courts last November, he has failed to rescind Title 42, which was invoked by the Trump administration to use the pandemic as an excuse to expel anyone arriving and seeking asylum.  The continued practice of Title 42 has forced some families to separate at the border leaving some to become “unaccompanied minors.” The label “unaccompanied minors” is misleading. In fact 90% of so-called unaccompanied minors have family members already in the US with whom they plan to reunite. The longstanding practices of Customs and Border Patrol, has led to making children “unaccompanied,” by failing to recognize other trusted family members with whom they are travelling as family.  

We believe there is another way.  The Biden Administration is seeking to create “influx centers,” another name for massive child detention facilities.  Our countries’ history of separating families and warehousing children goes back to the genocidal policies towards indigenous and Black communities. Immigrant children have been subject to it since.   

Detention in large scale influx facilities is not the solution now, not during a pandemic, and not ever. Health professionals and child welfare advocates are clear that such settings which deprive children of their freedom are inherently harmful to children for any amount of time.  Evidence suggests that  children housed in these situations face severe trauma and  “will likely suffer acute, sustained, and even permanent impacts to their minds and bodies.” These “emergency influx shelters” are part of decades of policies under Republican and Democratic administration to criminalize versus humanize migrants.  The top priority must be non-detention solutions which rapidly reunite children with their parents, trusted caregivers or family members must be the top priority.  The Biden administration must rescind Title 42 and apply financial resources to more rapidly vet and process children to get them out of detention and reunite them with their families.

We Can Respond with Compassion

We have more than enough resources to approach this in a different way. The question is, “Do we have enough courage and heart?”  If we are courageous we can do the right thing and respond with compassion. We can reimagine our current system of detention and deportation by responding with collective action and community care to welcome people in safe and dignified ways. We have organized and witnessed the ability of communities to come together to support and accompany newly arrived immigrants seeking safety in the US as an alternative to family separation and detention.  With redirected government resources, this could meet the need and be even more impactful.   

We need to commit to the core values of human dignity and  freedom, that no one belongs in cages.  But that everyone deserves communities of care and welcome and support that they need to fully thrive.

Support our campaigns that uphold the vision of a world without bars and borders. 

Categories
Freedom Campaigns

Freedom Campaigns: Mario Ramos

What is a Freedom Campaign? A freedom campaign surrounds a person with community support to help him/her to be released from detention.  

How do we serve? We serve immigrants at the Adelanto detention facility, including asylum seekers, long term immigrant residents, some who may have former convictions, but who have fully rehabilitated and who have already served their time. All deserve a chance to go through their immigration proceedings from outside detention and to be reunited with their families and communities.

How do we support? We support immigrants by working with them and their family members to develop strategies, and support them to publicly promote their story, recruit allies and advocates from the faith community and work alongside their attorneys to gain release from detention.   

Why is this important?  We believe that all people are sacred across bars and borders and that detention is not necessary to the immigration process. Community alternatives and systems of release exist and people should not be held in detention for years or indefinitely as they seek due process. As people of faith we are called to act according to our values of  compassion, love, and restoration by welcoming immigrants and helping them to integrate successfully in our society.   

How can you help?  You can help by supporting one of our Freedom Campaigns. Learn about the persons’ story. Take action to support someone’s freedom by making a call for someone’s release, participating in prayer vigils and legislative visits. You can support by elevating one of our Freedom Campaigns stories and by helping bring some light to a case.  

Take action today below.  

Join Mario’s Freedom Campaign Team (4/15/2021)

TAKE ACTION NOW!

Listen to Mario’s testimony:  Clip: https://fb.watch/3JnqLtmeG2/

Learn Mario’s story and Share Toolkit: bit.ly/FreeMarioToolkit

Call or email the ICE Field Director officer David Marin and leave a message.  

Instructions: Dial Phone Number: 213-830-5931 or email David.a.marin@ice.dhs.gov

Ask to speak with the ICE Field Director David Marin and leave a message.  

Say this message: “Hello my name is _____, and I represent _____ (insert name of congregation/organization). I am calling to ask David Marin, Field Office Director to grant discretionary release to Mario Ramos # 4 AD, 105, 1 Low.  Who, is held at the Adelanto Detention Facility. After being properly released from prison, he was transferred to Adelanto without notification and this was a violation of his rights. When granted his liberation, Mr. Ramos can contribute greatly to the community because he has a Certification in water treatment and he is counselor to people dealing with addiction. Furthermore, his mother needs his support to care for her and help her financially. We ask you to use your moral authority and grant immediate release to Mr. Ramos who over 10 years has restored himself and can fight his deportation case with his lawyer and be reunited with his family.”

Our focus to call is today, but please feel free to call anytime throughout this week.

Be safe, stay healthy and take part in transforming this time into a beautiful era.

To get involved, or for more information, contact:

Maria Guadalupe Ortiz
Freedom Campaign Coordinator 
Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity –IM4HI of Southern California, Inland Empire 
mgortiz@im4humanintegrity.org

February 2022 Update: Mario is Free!

Mario reunited with his mother, Dina

After over a decade spent separated from his mother and family, and a one year Freedom Campaign, Mario Ramos was finally released on January 27th after enduring double punishment as a result of collaboration between prisons and immigration detention centers. In 2018, Mario completed a seven-year prison sentence after showing exceptional efforts at recovery and rehabilitation. Instead of being allowed to return home, Mario was taken immediately by ICE and held at Adelanto Detention Facility.
At Adelanto, he had to unnecessarily spend 4 more years deprived of freedom. He survived COVID while in detention, feared he would be deported, and wondered if he would ever be allowed to come home. However, Mario never allowed these setbacks to distract from the progress he sought to make. Mario admirably remained committed to self-improvement and found ways to minister and support his peers while imprisoned and detained. Mario has prevailed through years of injustice, and we are thankful he will be able to return to a life of family and freedom. Thank you to the many of you who wrote letters directly to Mario to help him stay encouraged. Some of you wrote personal support letters that were presented to the judge and others held Mario up in prayer. Every action of support was a step forward to his release. Mario and his mother Dina send you their appreciation and blessings! Today, Mario’s joy and enthusiasm are contagious, and he is ready to use his story to educate others and help end the ICE transfers that cost him 4 years of his life.