Daily Dispatch 10/4/2019: Home is Here and D.C. Action

Fri, 10/04/2019 - 12:00pm by Tom

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Daily Dispatch

October 4, 2019

https://youtu.be/lfN4UxPLlvo

Home is Here Video

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Home is Here Campaign Launch

We want to use the Dispatch today to lift up the launch of the Home is Here campaign because of the importance of this issue to so many people (the Quixote Center is not a member of the coalition). Home is Here has been organized to educate and do advocacy in support of DACA’s extension leading up to the November 12, 2019 Supreme Court hearing that will likely determine the future of 700,000 people currently here under DACA. The campaign launched on October 2. Below is information abridged from a press release from coalition member, the National Immigration Law Center, which outlines the campaign and provides a host of valuable resources about DACA.

WASHINGTON, DC — Ahead of the November 12, 2019, U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments in three consolidated cases regarding President Trump’s unlawful termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, DACA recipients and a broad coalition of immigrants’ rights organizations today launched the Home Is Here<http://homeishere.us/> campaign to highlight what is at stake for 700,000 DACA recipients, their families (including 256,000 U.S. citizen children), our communities, the economy, and our country if the Court overturns the lower court rulings currently allowing DACA renewals to continue.

“For the past seven years, DACA has been an incredibly successful program, providing temporary protection from deportation and peace of mind to nearly 800,000 young people who have lived in the U.S. for most of their lives. These Dreamers are part of the fabric of our country, but their futures are once again hanging by a thread as DACA heads to the Supreme Court,” said Karen Tumlin, founder and director of the Justice Action Center, manager of the Home Is Here campaign, and part of the counsel team for McAleenan v. Batalla Vidal. “Ending DACA was both immoral and unlawful, as multiple courts across the country have found. We will continue to fight for DACA recipients and their families whose home is here, in the United States.”

Organizations participating in the campaign include CASA, the Center for American Progress, Community Change/FIRM, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), FWD.us, Justice Action Center, Make the Road New York, NAKASEC, National Immigration Law Center (NILC), and United We Dream (UWD).

The Home Is Here campaign tells the stories of and commits to protect DACA recipients who arrived in the United States as children and their families. Over the past seven years, more than 700,000 immigrant youth have been able to work, attend school, better support their families, and make even greater contributions to our communities and our country because of the temporary protection from deportation granted by the DACA program. If DACA ends, DACA recipients would be added to the list of those targeted in the deportation dragnet and threatened with deportation to a country that they may not remember and where they may not even speak the language, sparking a new wave of family separation crises nationwide. Their homes are here in the United States.

The campaign will underscore why DACA is legal, constitutional, and highly successful through events across the country over the next six weeks, including DACA renewal clinics and other efforts to encourage DACA recipients to renew their protections as soon as possible, digital storytelling, paid advertising, organizing, and rallies at the Supreme Court and in multiple cities across the country on November 12.

On November 12, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in McAleenan v. Batalla Vidal, Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California, and Trump v. NAACP. The lower courts in each of these cases ruled that the Trump administration’s September 2017 termination of the DACA program is unlawful. Nationwide injunctions and other court orders in place have allowed DACA renewals to continue since early 2018; however, no new first-time applications have been considered or granted since the attempted termination. A decision from the Supreme Court is expected between January and June 2020.

The deputy solicitor general of California, Michael Mongan, and noted Supreme Court advocate Ted Olson, solicitor general of the United States under the George W. Bush Administration, will argue on behalf of a number of individual DACA recipients and the other plaintiffs in these cases, including the regents of the University of California, Microsoft, Princeton University, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Current DACA recipients are encouraged to consult with an attorney as soon as possible to consider their renewal options. More information is available at . Americans can also contribute to a DACA recipient in need of the $495 renewal fee by visiting .

KEY DACA FACTS

– DACA recipients, on average, arrived in the United States at the age of 7 and have lived here for 20 years. . They are our classmates, our coworkers, and our friends. Most know no other country as home.

– DACA recipients are , and nearly every DACA recipient is part of a mixed–immigration status family. Ending DACA would rip apart hundreds of thousands of families.

– DACA recipients contribute significant federal, state, and local tax revenues that help provide important benefits to millions of Americans:

Additional DACA Resources

For more information, visit the Home Is Here website, .

 

In D.C.? Take Action this Week. From Sanctuary DMV

The DC Council will introduce a bill to end all cooperation between D.C. and ICE. The Council was given notice of the emergency bill today and will vote on it on Tuesday, October 8. If passed, it will take effect for 90 days while the D.C. Council works to pass a permanent version of the bill.

We need your solidarity to make this a reality. Please to vote for the bill and this weekend to gather community support.

The would:

  • Ban D.C. from notifying ICE when someone is being released;
  • Ban D.C. from allowing ICE agents inside its jails and facilities;
  • Ban D.C. from holding someone in its custody for ICE to pick up;
  • Ban D.C. from sharing information about an individual with ICE; and
  • Apply to all D.C. agencies, including the DC Jail and MPD.

In August, Washington City Paper that the D.C. jail has been helping ICE detain D.C. residents by notifying ICE when immigrants are being released so ICE can come and detain them – and by giving ICE agents special access inside the jail. Since 2016, the D.C. jail has transferred 43 of our neighbors to ICE and made it possible for ICE to detain many others directly outside the jail. We have also seen other D.C. officials such as MPD officers help ICE tear immigrants away from our communities.

The Sanctuary Values Act would ban all of these practices so that D.C. stops turning over its own residents to immigration authorities.

We are working in coalition with Many Languages One Voice, United We Dream, the Congregation Action Network, Just Futures Law, and other groups to address serious violations of D.C.'s sanctuary status and build a future without cages or deportation.

Join us in the fight by to D.C. councilmembers and this weekend.

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