Author: Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity

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Night Out For Safety & Liberation

This year, Our Justice Not Jails program invites the community to come together for a different kind of conversation about what real public safety looks like: public safety based on respect and on access to good schools, good jobs, and good services in neighborhoods that are over-policed but under-resourced in every other way.
Our event at Ward AME Church will work in small conversation circles and then come together at the end for a moment of commitment and a moment of remembrance for all those who have suffered and died under our current broken system of policing.
Event: Night Out For Safety & Liberation
Date/Time: Tuesday, August 7th, 6 p.m.
Venue: Ward AME Church
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Nueva Esperanza

In response to the needs of our immigrant neighbors, our accompaniment program seeks to address the major barriers responsible for detention and deportation. IM4HI works with congregations throughout the Bay Area in order to train dedicated individuals who can form accompaniment teams to support newly arrived or newly exposed members of our communities. Teams work under the lead of the accompanied families to determine goals such as healthcare, legal, and education, and help families realize their objectives. Support as simple as helping make an appointment or learning how to use public transportation grows independence and ultimately, the strength of our immigrant neighbors.

Networks of Protection and Rapid Response
County-wide movements are occurring all over California in order to form Rapid Response hotlines which provide immediate aid to those neighbors held in detention centers or are terrorized by ICE. In Northern California, IM4HI is a member organization of the Alameda County Immigration Legal Education Partnership working as a dispatcher to fill out intake forms, verify ICE activity, and hold Know Your Rights Workshops.
Coordinator: Samantha Vazquez
Contact: svazquez@im4humanintegrity.org

Please meet our 2018 accompaniment teams:

Berkeley Friends Meeting House, Christ Church Berkeley (Teams A, B, and C!), Eden Church Hayward, First Congregational Church of Berkeley, First Presbyterian Church of Hayward, First Unitarian Church of Oakland, Ignatian Spiritual Life Center, Kehilla Community Synagogue, Mt Diablo Unitarian Universalist Church, Los Altos United Methodist Church, Rise Up Together SF, San Francisco Friends Meeting House, Universalist Unitarian Church of Berkeley, and Ygnacio Valley Presbyterian Church.

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Video: This Young Girl Used her Quinceañera to Protest the Separation of Families

“Alexa Lopez protested her father’s detention by ICE by dancing in front of his prison – a dance she was supposed to share with him.” — The Lens.

Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity practices Sanctuary by accompanying families who are advocating for the release of their loved one in detention. At our monthly interfaith vigils we gather to provide a space to nourish our activism, to connect with families, to educate, and to get involved.

In 2018 we supported the Lopez family by training an accompaniment team from First Congregational Church of Berkeley to assist them in their campaign to #FreeRaul. That year Raul’s daughter Alexa was turning 15 and would be celebrating her Quinceañera, but since her father has been detained, this was not an option. Nonetheless she insisted on making a statement of the impact her father’s detention is having in her life. This video was filmed at our interfaith immigration vigil where Alexa performed her “Vals” coming of age dance outside the West County Detention Facility in Richmond, CA, where her father was detained. Her statement gained national media attention, and public support for Raul’s bond hearing.

Update, June 2019: In September 2018, this family celebrated Raul Lopez’ return home to the Bay Area California. He and his lawyer continue to fight his deportation order, but at least he is now with his family, and not incarcerated.

Film by Deborah Svoboda for The Lens YouTube channel.