Tag: immigration
Immigrant Families Hold Amazon to the Fire for Ties with ICE
Article via InsiderNJ
Immigrant Families Hold Amazon to the Fire for Ties with ICE
Ahead of Prime Day, New Jersey communities condemn the corporation’s ties to Trump’s deportation machine
ELIZABETH, NJ — On the eve of the corporation’s two-day Prime Day event, hundreds of immigrant families rallied outside of Amazon’s warehouse in a show of power condemning the corporation’s ties to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Immigrant workers and families delivered a petition with more than 200,000 signatures to Amazon demanding the company cut ties with ICE.
“In a moment when the federal government is caging children in horrendous conditions, Amazon provides key technology and data infrastructure to fuel the Trump administration’s deportation machine and bolstering the work of ICE,” said Sara Cullinane, Director of Make the Road New Jersey.
Immigrant members of Make the Road New Jersey – including families who have been detained by ICE – called for Amazon to end its partnership with ICE and close any federal contracts that support the administration’s anti-immigrant agenda.
“Last year my daughters were detained by ICE. Family separation is destructive and devastating. Amazon must cut its ties with ICE immediately.” said Mario, a member of Make the Road New Jersey.
The rally also made its way across the street to the Elizabeth Detention Center, where more than 300 individuals continue to be held as they face deportation.
“New Jersey’s undocumented immigrants pay nearly $600 million in state and local taxes each year, according to the non-partisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. That’s $600 million more than Amazon – owned by the world’s richest man – paid in federal taxes. It’s time for the Garden State to put its values first and say no to Amazon,” said Ana Ramirez, Make the Road NJ.
The group also called out Amazon for its increasingly alarming workers’ rights violations, standing in solidarity with warehouse and tech workers across the country who continue to strike.
“As the Trump administration escalates its campaign against undocumented families in New Jersey and across the nation, it’s time for Amazon to start acting like a responsible corporate citizen. Amazon must stop providing the critical tech infrastructure that supports the Trump administration’s inhumane deportation machine. And as one of the largest and fastest growing employers in the state, Amazon must start treating its warehouse workers with the respect and dignity they deserve,” said Albert Arroyo, Co-Manager of the Laundry, Distribution and Food Service Joint Board, Workers United, SEIU.
The rally paused for a moment to raise fists in solidarity with Amazon workers at a fulfillment center in Shakopee, Minnesota who plan to strike during Prime Day to protest dangerous productivity quotas and the corporations refusal to convert more temporary workers into employees. The workers, many of them Muslim immigrants from East Africa, previously have protested to call attention to their working conditions.
The rally is one of several coordinated actions taking place across the New York tri-state area this weekend, building on a collective grassroots energy working to hold the corporation accountable.
This effort sets the tone looking forward, as the FTC’s starts its investigation of Amazon. Progressive groups are prepared to mobilize around antitrust efforts against the all-too-powerful monopolies and corporations that undermine US democracy, starting with the House Antitrust Subcommittee who will hold a hearing next Tuesday, July 16 on the impact of market power of online platforms.
Who is Dana Sabraw? 5 things to know about judge who ordered reunification of immigrant families
The federal judge who ordered the reunification of children separated from their families along the Mexican border is the son of an immigrant with the middle name “Truth.”
The government acknowledged it failed to meet Tuesday’s deadline set by U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw to reunite about 100 children under age 5 with their families after they were seized along the Mexican border when their parents were arrested for illegally entering the U.S.
Dana Sabraw, based in San Diego, last month gave the government 14 days to reunite children under 5, some of whom had been separated from their families for weeks. He allowed 30 days for older kids.
So who is this guy? His Federal Bar Association profile and his own legal rulings shine some light.
More: 3 young migrant children reunited with their dads in El Paso
More: Mexicans comprise a bigger share of border prosecutions
His mother is an immigrant
Sabraw’s father met his mother while he was an Army soldier stationed in Japan during the Korean War. They were married in her native Japan before settling in San Rafael, California, where the judge was born in 1958. He was given a Japanese middle name – Makoto – in honor of his mother’s family. The name translates to “true” or “truth.”
Migrants describe hunger and solitary confinement at for-profit detention center
CNN)The 40-year-old mother found herself in solitary confinement, locked in a cell behind a steel door for 23 hours a day, according to her legal filing and attorney.
Feds miss deadline to reunite all immigrant children under 5 with families
SAN DIEGO — Lawyers for the Justice Department said in a court filing Tuesday that the federal government will miss a court-imposed deadline to reunite most of 102 migrant children under the age of 5 with their parents from whom they were separated. More children were reunited with their families Tuesday, but there were still dozens still separated from their families by the end of the day.
CBS News correspondent Mireya Villarreal reports that the judge wants to see constant progress and that there is a system in place that tracks these children.
As of Tuesday morning, four children had been reunited with their parents, according to the joint filing submitted by the government and the ACLU to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.
A June 26 court order stemming from a lawsuit filed over the Justice Department’s “zero tolerance” policy — which led adults and children to be separated when apprehended crossing the border — gave the government two weeks to reunite children under the age of 5 with their parents, and one month for all others.
On a conference call with reporters Tuesday, Chris Meekins, chief of staff for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ assistant secretary for preparedness and response, said the administration has tried to speed up reunifications by adding extra staff to conduct criminal background checks and determine claims of parentage.
“Let me be clear, HHS could have transferred every child in HHS care to a parent if we did not take into account child safety,” Meekins said.
Meekins said at least 14 children will not be reunited with those claiming to be parents, eight of whom failed criminal background checks, five of whom were determined not to be parents and one of whom is the subject of a claim of child abuse deemed to be credible.
The filing noted 13 others currently deemed ineligible for reunification, for reasons ranging from parents currently in the custody of other criminal justice agencies to a parent who is being treated for a communicable disease, and one who lives in a home with another adult who has a criminal background.
One child whose parents’ location is unknown may not actually be an immigrant, according to the filing.
“Records show the parent and child might be U.S. citizens,” lawyers for the government wrote in the filing.
Abril Valdes, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan told the Associated Press that two young boys and a girl were among those reunited Tuesday with their families at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The parents will be free while their cases wind through immigration court, and they’re expected to be required to wear ankle monitors, AP reports.
Valdes says her client, Ever Reyes Mejia, and the other two fathers “were hugging and loving their” children and telling the kids that “they were never going to be separated again.”
In total, the administration said it expects to ultimately reunite 75 of the 102 children with their parents. It noted that 20 of those parents were already deported, even though their children remain in U.S. government custody.
In the filing, the ACLU criticized the government’s work reuniting the children with their parents.
“For (the parents) who were deported without their children, (government officials) have not even tried to contact them or facilitate their reunification by today,” ACLU lawyers wrote.
There are as many as 2,900 more children five or older who remain in federal custody awaiting a July 26 reunification deadline, HHS Secretary Alex Azar said Thursday.
Article via: Feds miss deadline to reunite all immigrant children under 5 with families
1-year-old baby appears in immigration court, cries hysterically
A year-old baby boy in federal custody appeared in immigration court without his parents in Phoenix, briefly played with a ball, drank from a bottle, then “cried hysterically” as he was about to leave the courtroom, according to the Associated Press.
But he was eventually granted a voluntary departure order so the government can fly him to Honduras, where his father has already been sent.
The little boy, identified in court only as Johan, was one of the children who appeared in the Arizona court Friday without parents. One boy held up five fingers when the judge asked him his age.
Judge John Richardson said he was “embarrassed to ask” if Johan understood the proceedings, said AP. “I don’t know who you would explain it to, unless you think that a 1-year-old could learn immigration law,” he told Johan’s attorney.
Immigration advocates have complained about children in court, calling it stressful and frightening. There are no physical accommodations for children, many of whom can’t even see over defense tables without booster seats.
“There are no booster seats … no teddy bears. It’s a cold immigration court, and these kids are sitting in chairs that are too big for them; their feet don’t even touch the floor,” immigration attorney Lindsay Toczlowski explained last month on CNN.
Johan, who was separated at the U.S. border from his dad under Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy, is one of the more fortunate children because he at least has a court-appointed attorney. Not all of the children separated from their parents do.
Trump countermanded his own separation policy with an executive order he signed June 20. But now his administration is under court order to reunite children with families.
Some 3,000 migrant children remain in government custody after being separated from their parents, and 100 of them are under the age of 5, according to HHS. The New York Times has reported that some records on the separated families have been lost or even destroyed, raising the possibility that some children may never be reunited with their families. In addition, the U.S. has already deported at least 19 parents of children under the age of 5 and in federal custody.
A federal judge in San Diego ordered the Trump administration to reunite children with their parents within 14 days for children under the age of 5, and within 30 days for older children. The first deadline is July 10.
Lawyers for HHS asked for an extension last week — and argued that federal officials shouldn’t be required to reunite children with parents who have already been deported. Judge Dana Sabraw, who set the deadlines, will hold a hearing Monday on the extension request, but only in specific cases where the government can demonstrate that it’s necessary. She said Friday that the government must reunite children with their parents, even if the parents have already been deported.
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