Tag: ice

Getting counted in the census might seem trivial, especially when faced with systemic obstacles, financial instability and the lack of essential resources. In the Black community, there is more to getting counted than it seems: the question of why Black people should get counted travels deep through generations dating back to the 1700s.

The 2020 census has inspired more and more youth to step up to get their families counted. Talking with a few young Frisco natives, new perspectives are gained on the dynamics of growing up in hard-to-count communities.

The time to act has come. It is right now. It is tonight and tomorrow. We must demand the immediate release en masse of half of the 47,000 people inside Pennsylvania state prisons.

While this is not the first time a White House occupant was a White supremacist, the vociferous espousing of ethnic cleansing of America has become an open debate and policy. Yet Black activists, as far as I know, are giving little attention to the prospects of being expelled from the U.S. in light of the U.S. government’s vicious expulsion of Latin Americans, or Hispanics, and others.

One Brazilian family explained that the food they were provided in detention was cookies and chips.

Black San Franciscans are over seven times more likely to be arrested than their White counterparts, and they are 11 times more likely to be booked into county jail.

“No longer can we sit on the sidelines,” the statement reads, “as SF Pride pretends to celebrate ‘Generations of Resistance’ on the 50th anniversary of the fight against police violence at the Stonewall Inn.” Their demands include permanently eliminating police and corporate presence at Pride celebrations, releasing incarcerated trans people from San Francisco county jails, and ending sweeps of homeless encampments in San Francisco.

On Tuesday, Dec. 11, up to 40 immigrants detained at the now infamous Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma began refusing meals, initiating a hunger strike in protest of the conditions they face. One detained activist listed the group’s demands as follows: “I am part of a group of detainees that are going to go on hunger strike as the only way to protest and shine a light on the abuses that we suffer here." This strike is the latest in a series of strikes protesting conditions inside the facility; the most recent mass strike began on Aug. 21 in conjunction with a national prison strike.

Nov. 6 is election day. If you haven’t done it already, register to vote. Encourage others to register and vote. Most of your ballots will be filled with local or state issues and candidates. Voters in the United States need more choices than Democrats and Republicans. If you see the name of a Green Party candidate, I hope you will check them out. Greens believe that people and the health of the planet should be more important than corporate profit.

Bottom of the boat --- rocking, rolling, thrashing --- Violently – the quaking black --- hole now her life. She had --- No idea where she was --- on the awful ocean, --- Traveling shackled for --- thousands of miles; --- belly beginning to bulge --- with the baby of her rum-reeking rapist and his --- “Zero Tolerance” policy --- for --- tears… --- She would bear four more for --- a ‘Master,’ who’d sell her --- to the West Virginian wanting --- her in the worst way –

On March 27, the San Francisco Bay Area’s Stop Urban Shield Coalition claimed victory in its four-year battle to stop Urban Shield, a war games and weapons convention for cops held in Alameda County every year since 2007. I spoke to Tracy Rosenberg, executive director of Media Alliance and co-facilitator of Oakland Privacy, a citizen’s coalition that works regionally to defend the right to privacy and enhance public transparency and oversight regarding the use of surveillance techniques and equipment. She has worked with the Stop Urban Shield Coalition since 2014.

All of these acts of violence against Mama Earth and her earth peoples are happening because the hard workers, the migrante indigenous labor that the multi-billion dollar farm industry relies on to pick, tend and distribute its products are being deported across the hate-filled colonizer borders. Borders created, enabled and enacted by the forefathers of the farm industry families themselves. To this violent paradox, I propose an emergency form of Ag-Reparations and Farm Sanctuaries.

Following the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department retweet of white supremacist Richard Spencer, which was a video of a press conference Spencer held defending the acts of terrorism in Charlottesville, we call on the sheriff to end their collaboration with ICE, stop profiting off of the incarceration of people of color, stop hosting militarized law enforcement trainings, and accurately account for what was saved as a result of Proposition 47.

Some 400 people packed a special city council meeting here on June 20 to demand that the city end its “shameful collaboration” with federal police and spy agencies. But the council, while widely hailed as “progressive,” ignored the near-unanimous popular opinion and voted to renew three controversial police programs: participation in a Regional Intelligence Fusion Center, participation in the Urban Areas Security Initiative and acquisition of a bulletproof armored personnel carrier.

Good morning and welcome to Wanda’s Picks, a Black arts and culture program with the African Sister’s Media Network. We are joined in the studio by Robert King, Albert Woodfox and Malik Rahim. Welcome to the show. Today we are going to be talking about the Millions for Prisoners Human Rights March on Washington. We can talk about solitary confinement, political prisoners, the 13th Amendment. We can talk about what the need is for having such an event.

On June 20, the Berkeley City Council, only months after being swept in by a progressive majority, rejected the call of hundreds of people to terminate a series of entanglements between local police and the federal security forces of the Donald Trump administration. The resistance failed to resist. In the nation’s heartland of dissent. What went wrong, and why? Petitions, a huge crowd, support from prominent public figures, fact sheets, a city poll dominated by those wanting a pull-out, three hours of public comment with no support for anything other than getting out. None of it mattered.

The 60-day notification deadline for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) re-designation is rapidly approaching, on May 23, 2017, for Haitian nationals. If re-designation is not granted, as many as 50,000 Haitians living across the United States will be stripped of work authorization and will be prioritized for ICE removal. ICE is currently removing over 4,000 Somalis residing in the United States, according to Ahmed Isse Awad, Somalia’s U.S. ambassador.

Dr. Léopold Munyakazi is in the custody of ICE, on the verge of being deported to Rwanda. The Rwandan government accused Professor Munyakazi of genocide crime after he made several speeches to university audiences in which he said that the Rwandan massacres were not genocide but class conflict. KPFA’s Ann Garrison spoke to Father Thomas Nahimana about the Munyakazi case.

Supporters of suspended Goucher College French Professor Léopold Munyakazi are urgently trying to stop his deportation to Rwanda because they feel it would lead to his imprisonment, torture and/or death. The Rwandan government accused Professor Munyakazi of genocide after he made several speeches in which he said that the Rwandan massacres that took place between 1990 and 1994 were not genocide.

Over 100 immigrant rights supporters assembled on the steps of San Francisco’s City Hall on Tuesday, July 14. It was a different kind of political event. There were no banners, no list of demands and no loud passionate speeches. Not on this day. It was a time to express their profound collective sadness over the senseless murder on July 6 of 32-year-old San Francisco resident Kathryn Steinle.