Ahead of the important Georgia runoff election, Hall County officials eliminated half of the county's advanced voting locations, disproportionately impacting Black and Latinx voters. The turnout data from the first two days of early voting shows that Hall County was among the counties with the highest turnout in the 2020 general election - when the County offered eight sites - but dropped to be among the counties with the lowest turnout in the 2021 runoff after half of the polling places were closed. It is clear that the county’s closures of early voting sites has caused lower turnout because they have made early voting less accessible, especially to Latinx and Black voters. Advocates have been offering the county help recruiting qualified poll workers to staff the closed voting sites. Elected officials at Hall County have responded that they have staffing concerns, which just means they should accept the offer of community advoactes offer to help recruit qualified poll workers. Although poll workers’ concerns about the Covid-19 virus are real, there is no reason why the county cannot address those concerns the same way it did during the 2020 general election when it maintained eight early voting locations with safety protocols.

No one should be locked up in a detention center during a global pandemic. We support the call to #FreeThemAll. As of today, people detained report there are at least 3 people detained, as well as receiving news of 3 more staff that have been diagnosed with COVID-19 in the last month, making that’s at least 6 employees with COVID-19 since October. Reports from people in quarantine show that just this December at least 3 pods have been placed in quarantine, in one pod all 14 people were given COVID-19 tests. The NWDC is not a safe place for anyone especially someone who is at high risk of complications from COVID-19. It is impossible to social distance, guards often do not wear masks or gloves and there is no contact tracing for ICE employees coming in and out of the facility. As long as he is detained Rene’s health and safety are at risk. Tell ICE to release Rene so that he can follow COVID-19 guidelines and get the medical care that he needs. Rene #FreeThemAll post: https://www.instagram.com/p/CDO6rzcJeO2/?igshid=1pr3wh0lqsxi

Since its creation in 2002, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has systematically violated the rights and assaulted the dignity of immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. Under both Democratic and Republican administrations, DHS has separated families, caged children, overseen the performance of forced hysterectomies, ignored grave allegations of sexual abuse, terrorized our commuities through raids, arrests, and more. Dozens of immigrants have died while in DHS detention camps due to medical neglect. It is clear the policies and practices of DHS pose life-or-death risks to immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. Despite this rotten and repeated history of alarming abuse and naked white supremacy, DHS has never been the subject of an official and far-reaching investigation, and the Department has repeatedly rejected calls for transparency and stonewalled demands for accountability. While President-elect Joe Biden has promised to reverse the heinous policies instituted under Donald Trump and has repeatedly agreed to a 100-day moratorium on deportations, we know this is not enough. Add your name to this petition calling on the Biden administration to issue a deportation and enforcement moratorium, and investigate DHS on day one. Latinx voters, Black voters, immigrant communities, and communities of color helped deliver this election to Joe Biden. It is now time for Joe Biden to deliver for us.

Palantir sells two tools to ICE. The first, Investigative Case Management (ICM), is “mission critical” to ICE’s efforts, according to government documents, and was used at the border to investigate the families and sponsors of children who crossed the border alone. The operation, designed specifically to dissuade children from joining family in the United States, resulted in the arrests of at least 443 people over 90 days. Its second tool, FALCON, is used by agents leading workplace raids, which increased by 650% during President Trump’s first year in office and arrest thousands of people every year just for being undocumented. During a raid in which ICE agents hit 7-11s nationwide, all agents were told to download Palantir’s FALCON mobile app for use during the raid. FALCON is used by agents who lead raids like those in Mississippi in early August 2019, when almost 700 people were arrested en masse during the first day of school for many, leaving some children without either parent when they came home; at least two children were left alone for eight days because both of their parents were arrested and detained by ICE. Palantir can cancel both of these contracts. It can, at any time, pledge to stop working for ICE going forward. We know Palantir workers, academics, and a wide coalition of ordinary citizens from Latinx and Jewish groups have called for the company to drop its contracts, but executives have ignored these calls, calculating that it’s better business for the company to stay close to the government than to follow ethical considerations. We hope they reconsider. There are dozens of schools represented by the students who have signed this pledge. All of us are committed to pursuing Palantir across our campuses. We will kick recruiters out of career fairs, protest company speakers on campus, and urge university administrators to drop the company’s sponsorship at every turn. We are not alone. In 2019, hundreds of academics pressured U.C. Berkeley to drop Palantir as a sponsor of a privacy scholars conference. In late August 2019, Lesbians Who Tech dropped Palantir as a sponsor of its annual conference, citing its work for immigration enforcement. Just two days later, the Grace Hopper Celebration, the largest conference for female tech workers worldwide, dropped Palantir as a sponsor just hours after learning of its role in human rights abuses. As more of us learn about Palantir’s work and refuse complicity in human rights abuses, the company’s recruitment will decline and its business will suffer. Palantir will become a pariah, shut off from academia and computer science talent unless it decides to change tack. Join us. If you are a student, sign below to tell Palantir you will not work with them while they build tools that enable human rights abuses. Through recruitment, seminars, and other events, we are funneled into tech companies that facilitate the detention and deportation of immigrants in the United States. Many students choose to work at tech companies immediately after graduation, and are thus either directly responsible or complicit in the violence tech companies facilitate on immigrants and refugees. We have the responsibility and the leverage to change this technology. They cannot build these tools if we don’t work on them. Note: This petition has been updated to change dates and reflect Palantir's public offering. This petition is based off of existing college petitions including MIT students against Palantir.

ICE and LaSalle—the for-profit prison corporation that runs Irwin County Detention Center—are under federal investigation for their role in the systematic medical abuse of people incarcerated by ICE. That medical abuse includes coercive, painful, and life-altering gynecological procedures. ICE is attempting to deport the survivors and witnesses who have the knowledge that the investigation needs to hold ICE accountable. In September, Nurse Dawn Wooten blew the whistle on ICE and LaSalle’s medical abuse and complete failure to protect people in their custody from COVID19. In a report released by Project South and the Government Accountability Project, she exposed Irwin County Detention Center’s (ICDC) partnership with a doctor pressuring women into accepting painful, life-altering, and unnecessary gynecological procedures, including hysterectomies. The women detained at ICDC have continued to speak out about the use of medical neglect and torture at ICDC for-profit and punishment. Independent medical professionals have since reviewed dozens of medical records and uncovered a pattern of coerced, painful, and life-altering violence against the bodies of incarcerated women who are disproportionately Black and brown. Some women still do not know what was done to their bodies. They only know they did not want it or ask for it. ICE and LaSalle hope the election will pull our attention away from these abuses for long enough to escape accountability. They deny women the opportunity to meet with doctors who might help them understand what has been done to their bodies. Not only that, but ICE and LaSalle are conspiring to deport the survivors and witnesses of their crimes for participating in the ongoing investigation. We will not allow ICE to retaliate against and disappear the survivors of their crimes or witnesses in the investigation. ******You Can Act****** * 1a. Email Field Office Director (FOD) Thomas P. Giles, Deputy FOD George Sterling, and Assistant FOD Patrick Musante: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] AND * 1b. Call Assistant Field Office Director Patrick Musante: 404 893 1326 To let them know that: Ana Adan Cajigal (A# 204-392-122) and other women detained at ICDC are survivors of medical abuse and witnesses in an ongoing investigation by the Department of Justice. It is completely unacceptable for ICE to deport survivors and witnesses in the middle of a federal investigation. It reveals how ICE is actively trying to prevent their testimony from making it into the record. * 2. When you’ve made your call and sent your email, find three friends and ask them to do the same. Don’t let ICE secretly deport the survivors and key witnesses in an ongoing investigation into ICE’s crimes! * 3. Donate to the commissary fund hosted by the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights: https://bit.ly/ICDCcommfund to support the brave men and women at ICDC!

Don’t let ICE deport survivors and witnesses of coercive gynecological procedures and medical abuse at a for-profit immigration detention center! ICE and LaSalle—the for-profit prison corporation that runs Irwin County Detention Center—are under federal investigation for their role in the systematic medical abuse of people incarcerated by ICE. That medical abuse includes coercive, painful, and life-altering gynecological procedures. ICE is attempting to deport the survivors and witnesses who have the knowledge that the investigation needs to hold ICE accountable. In September, Nurse Dawn Wooten blew the whistle on ICE and LaSalle’s medical abuse and complete failure to protect people in their custody from COVID19. In a report released by Project South and the Government Accountability Project, she exposed Irwin County Detention Center’s (ICDC) partnership with a doctor who was pressuring women into accepting painful, life-altering and unnecessary gynecological procedures, including hysterectomies. The women detained at ICDC have continued to speak out about the use of medical neglect and torture at ICDC for profit and punishment. Independent medical professionals have since reviewed dozens of medical records and uncovered a pattern of coerced, painful, and life-altering violence against the bodies of incarcerated women who are disproportionately Black and brown. Some women still do not know what was done to their bodies. They only know they did not want it or ask for it. ICE and LaSalle are hoping the election will pull our attention away from these abuses for long enough to escape accountability. They are denying women the opportunity to meet with doctors who might help them understand what has been done to their bodies. Not only that, but ICE and LaSalle are conspiring to deport the survivors and witnesses of their crimes for participating in the ongoing investigation. We will not allow ICE to retaliate against and disappear the survivors of their crimes or witnesses in the investigation. ******You Can Act****** * 1a. Email Field Office Director (FOD) Thomas P. Giles, Deputy FOD George Sterling, and Assistant FOD Patrick Musante: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] AND * 1b. Call Assistant Field Office Director Patrick Musante: 404 893 1326 To let them know that: Mbeti Ndonga (A# 073-764-092), Alma Bowman (A# 035-559-134), Ana Adan Cajigal (A# 204-392-122) and other women detained at ICDC are survivors of medical abuse and witnesses in an ongoing investigation by the Department of Justice. It is completely unacceptable for ICE to deport survivors and witnesses in the middle of a federal investigation. It reveals how ICE is actively trying to prevent their testimony from making it into the record. * 2. When you’ve made your call and sent your email, find three friends and ask them to do the same. Don’t let ICE secretly deport the survivors and key witnesses in an ongoing investigation into ICE’s crimes! * 3. Donate to the commissary fund hosted by the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights: http://bit.ly/ICDCcommfund to support the brave men and women at ICDC!

Alma Bowman is a 54-year-old woman set to be deported to the Philippines, a country she has not been in for more than 40 years - even though she is a U.S. citizen. She has lived in the U.S. since the age of ten when she came to the US in 1977, having acquired citizenship from her US citizen father. She also has two U.S. citizen children living in Georgia. Further, Ms. Bowman was one of the women detained at the Irwin County Detention Center (ICDC) in Georgia who provided crucial information in the whistleblower complaint filed by Project South, GLAHR, South GA Immigrant Support Network and Georgia Detention Watch. The report led to an investigation by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Homeland Security. Alma is a key witness to the abuse that has taken place at ICDC, and would like to stay in the US and share what she knows with federal investigators. Instead of acknowledging her US citizenship and the information she has to contribute to the ongoing investigation at ICDC, Ms. Bowman has been transferred thousands of miles away to Arizona, where she is awaiting deportation. Since August of 2017, Ms. Bowman has represented herself before ICE on her own; and without legal representation, she did not know that she is, in fact, a U.S. citizen. As soon as she found out she was a U.S. citizen, Alma filed a request to stop her deportation, submitting documents as proof of her claim - and still, ICE denied her request and is committed to deporting her. Ms. Bowman now has an attorney helping her and she needs time in the US to reopen her case and get the Court to terminate proceedings against her. As a U.S. citizen, she is not subjected to deportation. We ask ICE to reverse its decision and hold her deportation at this time, in order for Ms. Bowman to reopen her case and participate in the ongoing OIG investigation. Please consider donating here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-a-mom-stay-with-her-family

I respectfully request that you exercise discretion and grant Ms. Pauline Binam’s request to stay in the United States as investigations are underway into the harm she experienced during her time at the Irwin County Detention Center (ICDC) in Georgia. While at ICDC, doctors performed gynecological surgery and removed parts of her reproductive organs without Ms. Pauline Binam’s consent. She is scheduled to be deported tomorrow, just as we are learning that she was not the only woman in the Georgia detention center who was subjected to invasive surgery without her knowledge. Pauline still suffers from health complications as a result of her surgery, and her ability to have children has been drastically reduced. It is appalling and robs Pauline of the justice seeks to deport her in light of these revelations. Pauline is a loving and committed mother. While in detention for nearly three years, she has missed four of her daughter’s birthdays. She is a longtime resident of the U.S., having immigrated from Cameroon when she was 2 years-old. She graduated from high school and attended University of North Carolina-Charlotte before needing to quit school to take care of her sick father. She's also a survivor of three brutal and toxic relationships that led her through dark times. At a time when Pauline was resetting her life to focus on her daughter she was placed in immigration detention. While in detention, she suffered irreversible harm due to the cruel treatment of a doctor who is currently being investigated by the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security. With new information coming to light every day and the ongoing investigations into the crimes committed against Pauline and other women who suffered injuries such as hers, we ask that you halt Pauline’s deportation and release her to her family during this difficult time.

Since before arriving at NWDC, Santos has had several serious medical complications and chronic pain related to a past stroke that lead to Gout. These severe health conditions require careful medical attention and additional precautions such as social isolation to ensure that he does not contract COVID-19 in his compromised state. With the increasing risks due to COVID-19, Santos is now at an even higher risk of becoming more ill. His family is in deep fear for his health and is calling on our community to pressure ICE and have Santos released immediately. Santos life is put at risk every day he stays inside NWDC! Sign this petition to release Santos now! Desde antes que llegó al NWDC, Santos ha tenido varias complicaciones médicas serias y dolor crónico relacionado con un accidente cerebrovascular pasado que produjo la gota, todos los que no han sido tratados durante su tiempo en NWDC. Estas condiciones médicas graves requieren atención médica adecuada que él no está recibiendo actualmente. Con riesgos crecientes por COVID-19, Santos actualmente tiene un riesgo aún mayor de enfermar más. Su familia tiene miedo profundo por su salud y llama a nuestra comunidad a presionar a ICE a liberar a Santos inmediatamente. ¡La vida de Santos se pone en riesgo cada día que él se queda dentro de NWDC! ¡Firme esta petición a liberar a Santos ahora! Hear from his family: https://www.instagram.com/p/CC1-q22pQBK/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link Santos #FreeThemAll post: https://www.instagram.com/p/CC0_mEBJ_YW/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Over the past few years, BlackRock has increased the public attention it gives to sustainability, climate change, and ethical investment principles. However, BlackRock’s direct investment in Palantir betrays such principles. BlackRock is a direct investor in Palantir -- a data analytics company that provides technology to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to help identify, track, and target immigrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers for detention and deportation. BlackRock’s financing of Palantir and similar companies enables the Trump Administration’s ongoing war against immigrants -- particularly Black and Brown communities -- and potentially facilitates gross human rights violations. It's up to you to hold BlackRock accountable.

CVS -- one of the nation’s largest retail chain of pharmacies -- is making it impossible for the hardest-hit communities during the COVID-19 pandemic to access their testing operations. The company is not only requiring proof of in-state residence, drivers license or social security number to get COVID-19 testing, but even going so far as refuse service to Spanish-speaking and/or undocumented members of the community at some of its locations in North Carolina. This is unacceptable. CVS has publicly claimed that their testing sites are focused on the most “underserved and vulnerable communities.” Yet, Black and Brown, undocumented, poor and working-class populations -- who are concentrated in the frontlines of the “essential” workforce -- are facing barriers to receiving COVID-19 testing there. Millions of Americans do not have a government-issued ID, particularly U.S. born and immigrant Black and Brown communities. In addition to undocumented immigrants who do not have access to drivers licenses in states like North Carolina, over 21 million U.S. citizens do not have government-issued ID. These identifications can be costly and difficult to obtain, representing a significant block for low-income communities. According to a 2006 report, up to 25% of Black people over 18 years old lack government-issued photo ID, compared to only 8% of whites. Requirements to obtain an ID have only become more stringent since then. CVS has the power to change its policy. According to NC state health officials, reporting on COVID-19 testing “is unrelated to residency or nationality.” That means that the company has taken it upon itself to require residency and an ID from the people it seeks to serve. We are only as safe as the most vulnerable among us. Tell Larry Merlo, President and CEO of CVS Health, to remove this discriminatory policy and stop blocking access to COVID-19 testing for Black and Brown communities at all the CVS testing sites.

Bernardo Palacios Carbajal, 22, was shot in the back over 30 times while he was fleeing from police officers moments after yelling his last words “Officer, I don’t want to die!”  Seconds later officers proceeded to shoot him after he was dying on the ground. Instead of offering medical assistance after shooting him, officers yelled for him to “Show us your fucking hands!” Then his body was desecrated by having all his fingers shot causing some of them to become partially disconnected from his hands. We DEMAND justice for Bernardo.  The lack of meaningful action from the District Attorney's Office and Salt Lake City's Mayor, reveals an implicit backing of SLCPD's killer cops. Until all these demands are met, justice for Bernardo will not be served.  Until there is deliverance of Justice for Bernardo, and all peoples brutalized and killed by the police force, there can be no peace.