By Hilda Cruz, Regional Organizer, Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity
Like many others, I was shocked to learn about the for-profit detention centers that were being built all over the country, including the one in the city of Adelanto. … Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, Detention Watch Network, and Dignity not Detention Coalition will continue to work with people in detention and helping their families share stories of this harmful practice to make it public through prayer vigils, actions, and events. …
Hilda Cruz, Regional Organizer, Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity
Bula (greetings) to all! Charles “Bula” Joseph, IM4HI 2021 Spiritual Activist in Residence
I was an organizing leader on the inside, and I am eager to do all I can to further the movement to free all my brothers and sisters from the prison industrial complex and civil detention by ICE.
Charles Joseph, IM4HI 2021 Spiritual Activist in Residence
Charles Robert Joseph is IM4HI’s new Spiritual Activist in Residence!
IM4HI is proud to launch our Spiritual Activist in Residence position, investing in the leadership of those formerly incarcerated. This twelve-month paid residency program supports an individual who has survived both the criminal justice and immigration detention system, who can help to bridge silos in our movements and bring their skills and personal experience to enhance efforts of community outreach, public engagement, and movement building. This position will work in partnership with the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity and the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office. We are grateful to IM4HI’s Founding Circle of donors, the New Breath Foundation, and the Heising Simons Foundation for their support in making this residency possible.
We are thrilled to introduce Charles Joseph as our inaugural Spiritual Activist in Residence. Charles was incarcerated in CDCR for twelve years and was granted parole only to be picked up and detained in ICE detention for eleven months. We have had the honor of walking with Charles and his family on his journey as a leader and organizer behind bars, to his recent liberation from immigration detention, and his current efforts seeking a pardon to stop his deportation.
Charles will be leading IM4HI’s work on the VISION Act to end ICE transfers, creating healing circles for Pacific Islanders and other formerly incarcerated, and conducting community education about the intersections of immigration and incarceration. His musical and spiritual gifts will be a huge asset in reaching out to those directly impacted and advocating for policies that will transform systems of punishment into pathways to prevention and healing.
If you’d like to organize a screening and discussion of the film “Bula” about Charles’ journey, or know of Pacific Islander faith communities to engage in this work, please contact Charles at cjoseph@im4humanintegrity.org.
We look forward to movement building with Charles!
More About Charles
Charles “Bula” Joseph brings with him the life experience of being incarcerated for twelve years, and detained by ICE in Mesa Verde for eleven months. During his incarceration, the Native American Sweat Lodge was a big part of Charles’ transformation. After being invited and permitted to participate in their sacred ceremony, Charles began to heal from the inside and uplift others by teaching music, art, cultural chants and dances that were performed for events in the facility. Charles organized and performed concerts on the prison yard to boost morale and in the visiting room to create a pleasant environment. Charles was elected by his peers into the Men’s Advisory Council that was tasked with maintaining peace in the facility and bringing grievances to the captain and warden.
While Charles was born and raised in a strict Catholic family, he identifies as a Rastafarian. His life journey in studies of people’s belief has taught him that faith is essential, especially to have hope in dire times. Within incarceration, Charles has meditated with Buddhist brothers, fasted with Muslim brothers, been part of sacred ceremonies with Native American brothers, prayed in temple with Hindu brothers, celebrated with Sikh brothers, and led ceremony with Pacific Island brothers.
In the role as Spiritual Activist in Residence, Charles will bring his knowledge and journey of being impacted to deepen the faith-rooted organizing around issues of incarceration and immigration. Charles hopes to be a messenger for oneness, that all faiths are a branch of spirituality, like all rivers, lakes, oceans, and single puddles are all water.
Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity would like to thank our Congregational Sustainers for being part of a special group of congregations, our pillars of financial support. We appreciate and value you, our Congregational Sustainers, who make an annual gift as a gesture of our partnership and shared work. With your support, we are building the power of congregations across our state to be catalysts for change.
This year you helped to sustain some of the most vulnerable people in our society during this pandemic: recently arrived immigrant families and those incarcerated in our prisons and detention centers. You helped provide physical support, advocacy, and hope during trying times.
As Dr. King states in the quote above, human progress and change doesn’t just happen, but occurs through “tireless efforts” from “coworkers with God” like you. Thank you for being co-workers of God in partnership with us, especially during this pandemic!
Here are a few highlights of what we were able to accomplish through your congregational support this year.
Accompaniment
Walking with 300 immigrants: 300 immigrants in crisis received hands-on support through accompaniment and advocacy efforts. Through the incredible trained accompaniment volunteers and faith leaders, we helped release people from detention, defended them against deportation, offered financial assistance, spiritual support, emergency housing, and other resources. Short term and long term volunteers wrote letters to those detained, created accompaniment teams, and showed up to do advocacy.
Emergency Relief Fund: In the face of COVID and its devastating economic consequences, we helped 50 immigrant families and formerly incarcerated individuals receive economic relief through our emergency fund, dispersing $40,000 to support food, rent, and other basic needs. Requests continue to come in as the economic crisis continues for many.
Advocacy
Faith & State Policy: We have been vocal moral advocates for releasing more people from prisons and detention centers, beginning with the most vulnerable, to save lives and stop the spread of COVID. We organized faith sign-on letters and meetings with the Governor’s and Attorney General’s office to bring the call for compassion, mercy, and release signed by over 53 congregations and 600 faith leaders.
Success in Calls for Releases: This advocacy has been successful: we have won the release of twelve individuals, and all the remaining women detained at Mesa Verde Detention Center. Adelanto Detention is now at an all-time low of 350 persons. This demonstrates that not only is detention harmful, but it is also an unnecessary and pointless part of our immigration system. This year we continue the fight to ensure that ICE stops detaining new people and refilling these empty beds. We continue to demand clemencies, commutations, and releases for those in prison and they remain full and hotbeds of Covid-19.
Winning Reforms in LA: This year, when our country began to question more deeply institutions of policing and prisons, we engaged people in Los Angeles in education and campaigns to begin shifting resources from over-policing to community mental health and homeless services. This year, we will continue to engage people of faith to reimagine public safety in more humane and compassionate ways.
Thank you once again for supporting us in 2020. We look forward to the work ahead in 2021.
We hope you continue to engage in our 2021 local and statewide initiatives focused on reimagining public safety and community care. Join our efforts in federal advocacy that calls for criminal justice and immigration reform that is inclusive, compassionate, and corrects past harms.
Please share this word of thanks with your congregations. If you would like me or one of our wonderful staff members to come to preach or speak to your congregation, we would be more than happy to visit in 2021. I look forward to hearing from you!
