The Seattle office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has served a “Notice to Appear,” otherwise known as a deportation notice, to Washington-based community activist and mother, Maru Mora-Villalpando. Maru leads Northwest Detention Center Resistance (NWDCR), an organization that was co-founded when immigrants held at the Northwest Detention Center began a series of hunger strikes in 2014 protesting their inhumane treatment. Mora-Villalpando’s efforts have transformed the NWDC from an ignored facility in an out-of-the-way location to a key site of local resistance, with weekly rallies and vigils outside its gates. Now, in an unprecedented and arbitrary act of retaliation ICE has chosen to target Mora-Villalpando directly. ICE is now purposely targeting people such as Mora-Villalpando who are organizing against the agency and the Trump administration’s racially-motivated deportation agenda. “ICE only knows about me because of my political work,” explains Mora-Villalpando. “I have spoken out to defend immigrants in detention and shared my story as an undocumented mother. I have sat in meetings with immigration officials and challenged their practices. They are an agency whose actions have already been devastating to my community. But with the letter they delivered to my house, they are showing themselves to be an agency that silences any opposition to their practices,” she concluded. ---------------------------- La oficina de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas (ICE) de Seattle ha enviado un "Aviso de comparecencia", también conocido como un aviso de deportación, a la activista y madre en la comunidad de Washington, Maru Mora-Villalpando. Maru lidera la Resistencia del Centro de Detención del Noroeste (NWDCR), una organización que fue cofundada cuando los inmigrantes detenidos en el Centro de Detención del Noroeste comenzaron una serie de huelgas de hambre en 2014 protestando su trato inhumano. Los esfuerzos de Mora-Villalpando han transformado el NWDC de una instalación ignorada en una ubicación apartada a un sitio clave de resistencia local, con manifestaciones y vigilias semanales en sus puertas. Ahora, en un acto de represalia arbitro y sin precedentes, ICE ha elegido apuntar directamente a Mora-Villalpando. ICE ahora está apuntando deliberadamente a personas como Mora-Villalpando que se están organizando contra la agencia y la agenda de deportación racialmente motivada de la administración Trump. "ICE solo sabe de mí por mi trabajo político", explica Mora-Villalpando. "He hablado para defender a los inmigrantes detenidos y compartí mi historia como una madre indocumentada. Me he sentado en reuniones con funcionarios de inmigración y desafié sus prácticas. Son una agencia cuyas acciones ya han sido devastadoras para mi comunidad. Pero con la carta que entregaron a mi casa, se muestran como una agencia que silencia cualquier oposición a sus prácticas ", concluyó.

The Santa Ana City Jail is a for-profit jail, a morally and fiscally bankrupt business operated at the community’s expense. In 2016, the Santa Ana City Council ordered a study to explore potential avenues for closing and repurposing the Santa Ana City Jail. As Vanir, the company selected to conduct the study, prepares to present the report to the City Council in February, we call on the council to vote to close the jail in 2018, and rid our city of its for-profit prison. Built over 20 years ago, the jail has been maintained by decades of multi-million-dollar deficit spending (1), combined with a for-profit business model that until last May relied on an immigrant detention contract with ICE. Today, the funds lost by the termination of the ICE Contract are made up by a contract with the US Marshals to house federal prisoners (2). The City Jail doesn’t even house the vast majority of people arrested by Santa Ana Police because county jails hold them at no expense to the city (3). This means that for all intents and purposes, the Santa Ana City Jail is nothing more than a for-profit prison operated at the community’s expense. Private prisons are a form of violence against communities of color. And the Santa Ana Jail, with its profit-driven purpose is no different. In fact, the jail has been consistently reprimanded for the pattern of abuse towards the people imprisoned inside the facility. This year, a government report “documented widespread abuse at several immigration detention facilities across the country and on that list was the Santa Ana City Jail, where it found delayed medical care and staff mistreatment” (4). In 2016, the City Council demonstrated a commitment toward moral and fiscal responsibility by looking for ways to close the Santa Ana Jail. This year, the Council will have the opportunity they were waiting for. Let 2018 be the year they vote to close the Santa Ana City Jail. References: What Would It Cost to Shut Down Santa Ana’s Jail”: https://voiceofoc.org/2016/04/what-would-it-cost-to-shut-down-santa-anas-jail/ Santa Ana rents more jail beds to US Marshals after ICE cancels contract: https://www.scpr.org/news/2017/08/07/74385/santa-ana-narrows-budget-gap-left-by-canceled-ice/ Space in nearly empty Santa Ana city jail could go to mental health care: http://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/news/tn-wknd-et-0409-santa-ana-jail-20170408-story.html The Santa Ana City Jail is in violation of the law, federal report finds: https://www.ocregister.com/2017/12/18/the-santa-ana-city-jail-is-in-violation-of-the-law-federal-report-finds/

21 people currently being detained at McHenry Detention Center in Illinois launched a hunger strike six days ago in response to insufficient food options and mistreatment on behalf of guards towards detainees, according to information provided by detainees and their families to OCAD. In response to the hunger strike, authorities in the detention center have retaliated against strikers by denying the 21 hunger strikers recreational time, confiscating items purchased through commissary, and denying access to showers. “The fact that they are detained should not mean that it is right for them to be mistreated. This is inhumane,” said a family member of a person inside the detention center. The 21 hunger strikers at McHenry are risking their lives and are at risk of retaliation at the hands of McHenry guards. We need your help to amplify their demands and put public pressure on ICE and the McHenry Detention Center officials. Let them know the community is watching.

In March 2017, Tacoma City Council enacted emergency interim zoning regulations pertaining to correctional facilities. The explicit goal at that time was to make it more difficult for correctional facilities to expand. Since it opened with 516 beds in 2005, the Northwest Detention Center (NWDC) has expanded twice more to 1,575 beds, and one council member was concerned that it would expand again. In December, the Planning Commission rewrote a proposal to change the municipal code to explicitly state that immigrant detention centers are defined as correctional facilities. We think this will only help GEO Group to fight a lawsuit that demands it pay minimum wage to detained immigrants. In September 2017, the Washington State Attorney General filed a lawsuit against GEO for failing to pay minimum wage. GEO Group currently pays people $1 per day, and sometimes only snacks, to do most of the work at the facility, including the cooking, cleaning, and laundry. GEO Group claims it doesn’t have to pay workers minimum wage because the detention center is a correctional facility. In the September 20 press conference announcing the lawsuit, however, Attorney General Bob Ferguson pointed out that immigrant detention centers are not correctional facilities -- correctional facilities are for people going through the criminal justice system, not administrative immigration proceedings. If Tacoma changes its municipal code, GEO can use this change as evidence that it should get to keep paying people $1 per day. Tell the City of Tacoma not to do GEO Group’s bidding, and not to sabotage the state minimum wage!

This past November, 20 people were arrested by ICE and the Tennessee Highway Patrol while working at a warehouse in Memphis, TN. Under the Trump administration these workers are now facing federal charges for working without papers and could face up to 5 years in prison before being deported. Trump, US Attorney Jeff Sessions and ICE director Homan want to increase workplace raids, and increase criminalization of immigrants by prosecuting more cases and asking for long prison sentences before deportation. If this Tennessee raid is a sign of what’s to come, taking action is crucial. The decision to pursue or drop all charges is in the hands of US Attorney Michael Dunavant.

In a time when there is a president who uses racist rhetoric to describe immigrants on a near-daily basis in order to drum up support for his white supremacist agenda, naming this restaurant "Illegal Tacos" is a slap in the face to those in our community who face this harassment and discrimination in their lives. Bragging about only hiring Mexican chefs to authentically prepare the food, as the restaurant's owner Florian Furxhiu stated in a Philly.com piece, only makes things worse. Once again our community is valued only for their labor and not their huamnity.If Furxhiu wants to open an authentic Mexican restaurant, he should do so in solidarity with the folks making his food and from whose culture the recipes come and not name his restaurant after a dehumanizing slur. PS: If you wish to actually support Philadelphia's immigrant community please consider donating to Juntos. We are a locally based immigrant-rights organization that fights for the rights and humanity of our community. To donate please go to vamosjuntos.org/donate

We – community members, local organizations, groups, and allies of the migrant community in Virginia – are outraged that one of the few Latinx delegates in Virginia, Alfonso Lopez of the 49th District, has been receiving wages from Immigration Centers of America (ICA). It was revealed that from 2014 to 2016 Delegate Alfonso Lopez received at least $15,000 in wages from Immigration Centers of America. ICA is a toxic private prison company that operates the largest immigration detention camp in Virginia, ICA-Farmville. The majority of people detained in Virginia or Washington, D.C. are incarcerated at ICA-Farmville. We, as members of the migrant community, have experienced heartbreak and trauma at the doors of this detention camp. Alfonso Lopez’s attempts to justify his wages from ICA are disingenuous and hypocritical for a “champion” of migrants. Numerous people have died in ICE custody, including Anibal Ramirez of Woodbridge, who under custody at ICA-Farmville died due to medical neglect. During the Obama administration and the time Alfonso Lopez consulted for ICA, the largest number of people detained and deported rose and ICA-Farmville increased its average daily population of detention by almost 200 people. The detention and deportation machine that Alfonso Lopez has helped build has now been handed to an outright racist administration. The current administration has endangered programs like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Temporary Protected Status (TPS), putting thousands more migrant lives at risk of detention. It is clear that ICA and any detention camp is a direct threat to the migrant community. Alfonso Lopez cannot be a “champion” for the migrant community while at the same time profiting from its incarceration. We – community members, local organizations, groups, and allies of the migrant community in Virginia – demand accountability from Delegate Alfonso Lopez. We will not stand for this abuse of our community because we believe that an attack against one of us is an attack against us all. Collectively, For more info: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/veteran-latino-lawmaker-criticized-for-work-with-immigrant-detention-center/2017/12/09/99168640-db6a-11e7-b1a8-62589434a581_story.html?utm_term=.f6ab1244e300 https://www.facebook.com/LaColectiVA703/posts/738502729694265

The City of Tacoma allows for public comments at its Tuesday public meetings. They don't like what we have to say, so they are canceling them! Join us for a rally outside Tacoma City Hall to protest the canceling of the Citizens’ Forum/public comments. With dangerous institutions like ICE, GEO Group and LNG advancing their agendas of incarceration, racism, and environmental destruction in Tacoma, we need to fight to preserve the spaces where the people's’ voices can be heard.

On, Monday, November 27, Reuters released an article about the 287g program, which deputizes local police and sheriffs to work as immigration police directly with the Trump administration. A Reuters reporter submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to find out which counties around the country are exploring joining the 287g program and Rutherford county came up in the FOIA. The Knox County Sheriff's Department recently joined the 287g program in July, after previously having blocked from joining the program in 2013 due to civil rights and profiling concerns after Knoxville Sheriff JJ Jones pledged to "Stack immigrants like cordwood" in the county jail. And Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall, who once championed the 287g program, abandoned the 287g program in 2012 after Nashville residents denounced it as an anti-immigrant racial profiling policy that resulted in over 10,000 deportations for low-level offenses such as traffic violations. Just over a month ago, Rutherford County was targeted by white supremacist hate groups with an anti-immigrant "White Lives Matter" Rally, which was eventually canceled after thousands of Rutherford County Residents mobilized to stand up against hate. Now is our chance to show that we won't tolerate organized hate campaigns against immigrants from our local officials, either. Will you sign this petition asking the Rutherford County Sheriff's Department to release a statement, saying they are not interested in the discredited 287g program and that they will not seek to join it?

Kern County Law Enforcement (Bakersfield Police Department and Kern County Sheriff Office) were declared the most violent police force in the entire country in 2015. 65% of those shot and killed by Bakersfield Police are Latinos, even though Latinos only make 45% of the City. Earlier this month the ACLU released a report highlighting the patterns and practices of violating civil rights. Additionally, there is an ongoing Department of Justice Investigation into both the KCSO and BPD to get to the bottom of this. We in Kern County need change and we need it now! That change must start with accountability! Please help us make this a reality in Kern County.

It's exciting to have movies that explore an important part of Mexican and Latinx culture in such a creative way. It's disappointing, angering, insulting to have to watch a 30-minute teaser of a Christmas story based on "Frozen" before. To add insult to injury, the "Frozen" short shows a town of White people figuring out whether to steal other people's traditions. We thought we were at the wrong movie, but turns out we should just have shown up about 30 minutes late. #30minuteslateforCoco #CulturalImperialism #ReleaseMamaCocofromFrozen

Jose Torres is a father and immigrant leader who has decided to take a stand against the scapegoating of his family and the entire immigrant community. As an 18 year old recently arrived to the United States, Jose survived and escaped human trafficking. He made his way to New Orleans, where he found work rebuilding the city after Hurricane Katrina. He has worked in construction there ever since and has raised his family in the city of Gretna in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. Jose took Sanctuary at New Orleans's First Grace United Methodist Church on November 15, 2017 because, in his own words, "it's every parent's responsibility to go to the ends of the earth for their children." Jose’s two daughters suffer from chronic health conditions that require Jose’s constant support: Kimberly has had a life-threatening seizure disorder since birth, and Julissa has chronic tonsillitis. Jose drives them to doctor’s appointments, fills their prescriptions, and makes sure they get the love and care all children need. Jose has been a long-time leader in his community. He established a designated space in his community of Gretna, Louisiana for low-wage workers to seek work safe from wage theft and criminalization, and has spoken out in D.C. against the abuses of the private prison industry. It is fully within the New Orleans Immigration and Customs Enforcement office's authority to stop Jose's deportation. Jose belongs with his daughters in the city that he helped rebuild. Sign today to keep them together.