California policy allows undocumented and immigrant patients to receive county and state health services. Under our new administration, undocumented people are targeted for deportation and arrest.

Students in Arizona have been demonstrating their power and declaring their outrage at the election results through student led walkouts at different schools throughout Maricopa County. Students at ASU Prep who participated in student walkouts on November 10 are being given detentions. The ASU Preparatory Academy Student Handbook for the years 2016-2017 does not outline a punishment for an unexcused absence (https://asuprep.asu.edu/sites/default/files/asu_prep_handbook.pdf). According to the Manual for Arizona Public School Students by the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, “school officials cannot punish you for missing school to participate in a political protest more harshly than they punish students for missing school for any other purpose” (p 8, http://www.acluaz.org/sites/default/files/documents/SRHFINAL.pdf). Sign this petition and tell the ASU Prep Director, Mr. Vermeer, and the Dean of students, Mr.Boyle, not to punish students who exercised their first amendment right by participating in the student walkouts last week. Also, call 602-496- 3109 and leave the following message for Mr. Vermeer and Mr. Boyle: Hello, my name is _______ I am a concerned community member. I believe it is a student’s right to protest and should not receive harsher punishment for missing class to join the walkouts last week. I believe it is a violation of their first amendment right. I want to ask Mr. Boyle and Mr. Vermeer to relieve students from detention or any other punishment given for participating in the student walk out.

In recent months, the President and a bipartisan coalition have spearheaded a conversation on the need to reform a criminal justice system that acts as the new Jim Crow. The efforts say we have strayed from being a “nation of second chances.” The Democratic candidates have promised to address the mass incarceration that discriminates against Black and Latino communities and sentences people to cruel and lengthy punishment. But during the same time period immigration policy has actually moved in the opposite direction, widening the categories of convictions that place people in the crosshairs for detention, deportation and falsely claiming to focus on “felons not families.” For non-citizens and undocumented people, it doesn’t just impact people’s time in courts and jail. Instead of being able to reintegrate into their communities, contact with the criminal justice system can mean the double punishment of doing time and then being transferred to a second sentence in detention and eventually deported. With the Party expected to draft a platform that addresses both mass incarceration and promotes immigration reform, the platform committee has an opportunity and responsibility to ensure that someone’s experience with the one doesn’t result in unjust exclusion from the other. In Georgia, Juan has a felony conviction on his record for driving without a license. In Arizona, Noemi has a felony conviction for working to be able to afford to apply for DACA, the deportation relief program for immigrant youth. Right now, Jose Juan is in sanctuary in a church on Chicago’s Southside because ICE refuses to evaluate his case beyond a felony DUI he received years ago, a felony only because he did not have a driver’s license at the time. Instead of stigmatizing immigrants who have previous contact with the criminal justice system and putting them in further jeopardy, drop the box from immigration reform policies and make sure that everyone who calls the US home has access to the papers that make it official. Read more: Huffington Post: Nation of Second Chances or Double Standards http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tania-unzueta/a-nation-of-second-chance_b_9934394.html Are Criminal Justice Policies and Immigration Reform at Odds? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marisa-franco/are-criminal-justice-reforms-and-immigration-policy-at-odds_b_8361768.html A Price to High: Families Torn Apart by Deportations for Drug Offenses https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/06/16/price-too-high/us-families-torn-apart-deportations-drug-offenses