Category: IM4HI Vision

By: Miriam Noriega, IM4HI Program Director

I still believe in my country, even though I have personally experienced discrimination for being undocumented. This week the immigrant and ally community felt a gut punch at the news of the judge stopping new applicants for DACA. The right to work is a human right, and ending DACA during the COVID-19 pandemic denies this right to thousands of people who have been facing economic hardships and excluded from receiving government economic relief. 

I still believe in my country, even though exclusions are a common practice in immigration policy. The most recent exclusion of single adults, as the Biden-Harriss administration discusses, limiting the rescindment of Title 42 to only families. This exclusion denies the human right to ask for asylum at our border and the due process during the application process. The group that we foresee being most affected by this exclusión is the LGBTQ community. They seek asylum because they face constant life-threatening circumstances in their home country.  The second group we are concerned about is Black immigrants who face higher levels of racism throughout their immigration journey, loans for their journey, and deportations rates. It is important that Title 42 is rescinded without any exclusions.

The Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity believes that our country has the resources and the will to create humane and just practices to keep families together, welcome those seeking protection and refuge, and protect and nurture children. Since spring, we have collected letters from people of faith to the Biden-Harriss administration to use their administrative power to rescind Title 42 and join our vision to create more humane policies for all immigrants. The previous presidential administration initiated this policy during the pandemic; rather than controlling the pandemic, it has caused more harm to the immigrant community. As a result, families continue to be separated, and now we are facing a high number of unaccompanied minors. We invite you to listen to the story of one youth that experienced being held in an influx center only to be sent to detention when he turned 18 years old. A report like this reveals that unaccompanied minors held in influx centers, such as the Pomona Fairplex, are harmful to the child’s development. 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 administrations to criminalize versus humanize migrants. Our country has enough resources to welcome new immigrants with dignity, responsibility, and compassion. Rather than budgeting U.S. tax dollars to detention centers and influx centers, allocate these resources to reform the asylum-seeking process for everyone.

Rev. Deborah Lee and Rev. Larry W. Foy

We share a sense of somber relief in response to yesterday’s guilty verdict of Derek Chauvin. George Floyd was a father, son, and brother whose life mattered.  We pray this verdict brings some measure of healing and acknowledgement to the Floyd family, and is a first step of accountability for a tragic and preventable loss of life.  We pray that this moment marks an end to the impunity of law enforcement, particularly with violence enacted towards Black people. We believe that our society must be one that treats Black lives as sacred and one that fosters care, compassion, and dignity. 

We offer our prayers to the Floyd family and thousands of other families alike who have lost a loved one to police violence.  We remember yesterday’s latest victim, Ma’Khia Bryant, along with Breonna Taylor, Elijah McClain, and those here in California: Steven Taylor, Michael Thomas, Yanira Serrano, Angelo Quinto to only name a few. 

Death at the hands of police killings is a trend that is increasing and disproportionately impacts the lives of Black people at three times the rate of other communities. So far this year over 260 civilians have been killed by police. LA County Sheriff’s and LAPD have killed over 1,000 people since 2000. It is not just a few bad apples. Police violence is an epidemic and threat to public health and safety. 

We need radical change and transformation  in order to realize an equitable and just world. The existing system which focuses solely on punishment, does not bring about restoration but continues the cycle of harm and violence. True transformation and change cannot be achieved through our current system of policing, punishment, and prisons. We need processes that center healing and transformation. 

True justice will come through the eradication of structural racism and individual bias.  True justice will come when public safety is reimagined and centers on violence prevention and investing resources for people to thrive.  True justice will come when we create a society where every person is respected, valued and embraced in their full selves. 

We invite you to join with us at the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity in our organizing efforts to reimagine public safety in our communities and along our border, where we are calling for a radical redirection of funds from harmful enforcement models into investing in affordable housing, good jobs, equitable health and education, programs and support for youth and elders.  

As a nation, it is time for us to pass federal legislation like the Breathe Act which invests in a new vision of public safety, genuine security and liberation.  Only restorative justice will get us out of this long pattern of collective trauma and move us towards collective healing.  We hope you will join us.