We hope this newsletter finds you safe and your love ones healthy. If it does not, we are wishing you strength and courage to face what is certainly a difficult and scary moment.
What follows is a round-up of immigration news, advocacy opportunities, and an update of what we are doing over here at SFDP. This is a dangerous moment in our country and it is important to say over and over and over again unequivocally: immigrants are not dangerous. As you will see as you read on, there are simply too many instances across our country right now where the lives of immigrants and asylum seekers are being treated as if they are utterly disposable as our nation fortifies itself against a virus we are barely starting to understand. The Trump Administration and, in too many cases, the media are perpetuating the narrative of immigrant criminality to justify enforcement actions that are not only endangering immigrants but also your family and the fragile ecosystem of public health we are all sacrificing so much to protect in our home towns. We hope that as you find the strength to face this pandemic in your home and your community, that you stay informed about the contributions of immigrants and refugees and the unjust challenges that they face in this time and raise your voice anyway you can to fight for their protection.
Thank you.
Santa Fe Dreamers Project
Immigration News
ICE detainees are pleading for their lives as the agency continues to do very little in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Here at SFDP we have been on the other end of the phone for those pleas. People in ICE detention continue to live in filthy conditions with no space to distance and a lack of access to soap and disinfectants and any semblence of PPE. For an extremely comprehensive report (which SFDP contributed to!), check out the work of our friends at Amnesty International . In response to the lack of action against ICE there have been a wave of law suits all over the US asking federal judges to release people.
Detained Immigration Courts remain an extraordinary public health hazard. While the nation's non-detained immigration courts have shut down, the courts that serve detention centers are open, exposing judges, lawyers, workers, and the immigrants in court to uneccesary risk. The Department of Justice is demanding attorneys show up in full PPE gear even as outbreaks surge across the coutnry in various court locations. Read the Daily Beast's reporting on the issue.
If it wasn't obvious how essential our country's immigrant workforce was to our nation's economy, it should be now. From food production to medical care to essentail services, immigrants make up a vital section of our country's workforce. Yet, the country's coronavirus stimulous bill conspicuously excludes some immigrant groups. Vox.com does a good job of reporting how. In the coming weeks, please pay attention to local efforts to redistribute resources to make sure immigrant families and workers are not left high and dry.
United States Citizenship and Immigration Services has, in large part, closed their offices and shut down fingerprints and interviews. Importantly, while the Department of Homeland security is completely willing to risk the lives of immigrants and workers to facilitate uninterrupted deporatations, they are ok to shut down local offices and cause delay and economic turmoil for people taking advantage of affirmative immigration programs. Of course, as inconvenient as this is, closing these programs is the only choice to maintain social distancing. It is imperative that the enforcment side follows suit.
In the last couple weeks, the Trump Administration has closed the ports of entry to all non-essential traffick and is no longer allowing asylum seekers to present at the port of entry. They are also immediately expelling people who cross between the ports of entry, including unaccompanied children, in an enormous and distrurbing violation of due process in US law. Read Human Rights Watch's report of how these pandemic enforcement actions completely reinfoce our government's plan to target asylum seekers.
Advocacy and Online Educational Events
#FreeThemAll is the online campaign to demand the release of all detainees from ICE detention. Detention Watch Network is a great place to explore that. They have toolkits and a whole plethora of resources to learn about supporting immigrants in your community during the panedemic.
Another organization to pay attention to right now is Freedom for Immigrants. They do an enormous amount of advocacy for detained people. Exploring their website will turn up a lot of resources. Also check out their interactive detention map that is tracking COVID-19 outbreaks.
One online event that is sure to be interesting and worth your time is this Friday 5 pm MT (7 ET/6 CT/4 PT) with our friends at Innovation Law Lab. "A Castastrophe in the Making: Immigration Detention and Deportation under COVID-19". This will be a crucial update about how Trump's enforcement machine is endangering tens of thousands of lives during this pandemic and what we can do to disrupt it. RSVP here.
Santa Fe Dreamers Project hosted an online event about detention divestment on Tuesday April 7 and we have a recording and resources at this link.
We also want to give you a sense of what our team at Santa Fe Dreamers Project has been up to the last month. We know it is a completely rough time to ask for donations as there are so many families suffering around us. We just want to assure all of our supporters that we are using your donations and your trust to meet the challenges of the moment and that even the most modest donation can be instrumental in helping us make it through this critical time.
This week, with an enormous emergency grant from the City of Santa Fe, we are doing needs assessments with 60 of the most vulnerable families we work with to provide food, housing, and transportation support during this time.
Filing demand letter with ICE and Congressional leaders to demand the release of those LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV who are detained in Winn Correctional Center in Lousiana. Our staff has been supporting the people detained there for almost a year and tracking the abuse and discrimination. Read our letter here. Check out our social media to learn how to get involved.
Developing a plan to help Santa Fean's offer their $1,200 stimulous checks to immigrant families who work in our community and will fall outside Congress' stimulous plans because they work with ITIN numbers.
Continuing our growing campaign to educate and encourage divestment from private prison corporations
Individual case management for our hundreds of clients with pending immigration cases
Remote DACA clinics by telephone helping to keep renewing DACA permits as the Supreme Court's decision looms
Helping New Mexicans understand how unemployment benefits interact with their immigration statuses.
Working on nationwide litigation efforts to file restraining orders against ICE and the Immigration Courts. Here is one example from the Las Americas v. Trump litigation.
Helping the El Paso Immigration Collaborative file an enormous volume of humanitarian parole requests.
Filing humanitarian parole requests for our detained clients in Louisiana, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado.
Calling detention centers to perform wellness checks on detained people
Providing critical intel to media and national orgs who are reporting
Advocacy work with partners at the ACLU and New Mexico Immigrant Law Center to pressure state, county, and local leaders to make public facing plans for COVID-19 outbreak in New Mexico's 3 ICE detention centers
Continuing to support our transgender clients being released from detention
Maintaining our apartment for transgender women released from detention in quarantine conditions
