The bridge across all of our programs is the desire to change United States policies that impact the people we work with. We work to influence US policies that exacerbate extreme poverty and vulnerability in Haiti and Nicaragua. We also know that extreme poverty and vulnerability lead families to make the heartbreaking decision to migrate, to the United States or elsewhere. Our priority is addressing the root causes of migration in Haiti and Nicaragua. At the same time, we advocate for fair policies in the United States that promote the dignity of migrants. Current priorities:
The violence in Haiti is untenable. Gang violence in Haiti has killed over 1,230 people between July and September of this year alone. In response, the United Nations, with U.S. leadership, has authorized Kenya to deploy troops on the ground. This U.S.-backed police intervention will only escalate the violence, and more violence is never the solution. Click HERE to tell your members of Congress to take these five, concrete steps for peace.
At all times, and certainly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the governments of Mexico and the U.S. must protect the rights of migrants. In the current context of a global pandemic, both governments must halt enforcement actions and deportations, and release people from detention facilities where their lives are endangered by overcrowded and unsanitary conditions.
We are on the second to last day of Detention Watch Networks’s #FreeThemAll National Week of Digital Action, March 30 – April 4, to demand the liberation of all people in immigration detention – please keep up the pressure!
Day 5 – Friday, April 3: Care not Cages: Public Health Department Accountability Day
Drawing connections between immigrant detention and mass incarceration.
Day 3 – Wednesday, April 1: #DefundHate and #FreeThemAll
Day 2 – Tuesday, March 31: Let Our People Go/Trans Day of Visibility (From Detention Watch Network)
This is the first day of a cyber-week of action to get people held in immigrant detention released, and to get Immigration and Customs Enforcement to suspend enforcement and removal operations. We have written several background articles on the campaign, and the dangers of incarceration for people at this time.
We are running out of time to save the lives of those incarcerated in the world's largest network of prisons, jails, and detention sites. There are 2 million people incarcerated in the United States - more than any other country on the planet. They are all at risk.
"Viruses know no borders and they don't care about your ethnicity or the color of your skin or how much money you have in the bank," Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization health emergencies program.
