Immigration Policy Issue - Stopping 287G - Press Conference

Take Action!!!!

Houston, Texas: On Thursday August 27, 2009 we will be holding a press conference and delivery of letters against the 287 (g) The activity will commence with a press conference and a deliverance of letters at the Mickey Leeland Federal building located at 1919 Smith Houston, TX 77002. We will meet there at 10:30a.m. After that we will make local congressional visits dropping off a letter signed by more than 500 organizations nationwide alogn with a local letter... Please come to support this work! for more info please contact me... Cesar Espinosa

Read Letter Bellow:

Dear colleague,

PLEASE JOIN US TO DEMAND AN END TO RACIAL PROFILING
IN IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT!

This week 521 organizations from around the country -- civil rights, criminal justice, community and immigrant rights organizations -- joined together to send a letter to President Barack Obama urging him to terminate the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) widely criticized 287(g) program, which relinquishes the authority to enforce civil federal immigration law to local law enforcement and corrections officials. Advocates, expecting a major overhaul – or termination – of this controversial program, were shocked to learn that DHS was expanding it to 11 new jurisdictions. While DHS claims to have standardized the agreements, close scrutiny has shown that these changes do nothing to prevent civil and human rights abuses, and in fact only further exacerbate the program's pervasive problems.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County, AZ has been the most public example of the egregious human rights abuses that have resulted from the program. However, despite an ongoing civil rights investigation into the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office by the Department of Justice, DHS has not terminated its 287(g) agreement. Similarly, other law enforcement agencies around the country have aggressively targeted immigrants by using pretextual traffic stops or other racial profiling tactics.

We are asking for you to add your voice to this demand. Click here to send President Obama, the Department of Homeland Security, and members of Congress an email in support of the demand to terminate the 287(g) program and to restore fundamental fairness for all in our immigration enforcement policy.

You can see a full list of the organizations which have signed the letter.

The 287(g) program, which has contributed to the pervasive racial profiling our communities face day after day, must come to end.

Now is the time to join together to highlight for the President the urgent need to safeguard against civil rights and human rights abuses occurring under the 287(g) program. When Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was arrested in his own home last month, President Obama in response publicly recognized the “long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately". We must seize this critical moment to demand longstanding American values liberty, fairness and justice for all people.

Please distribute this link widely.

In solidarity,

All of Us or None

Center for Constitutional Rights

Detention Watch Network

Florida Immigrant Coalition

Grassroots Leadership

Homies Unidos

Immigration Law Clinic, UC Davis School of Law

Justice Strategies

Legal Services for Prisoners with Children

National Day Laborer Organizing Network

National Immigration Law Center

Partnership for Safety and Justice

Southern Center for Human Rights

Youth Justice Coalition

Cesar Espinosa

America Para Todos
Executive Director
6601 Hillcroft #125
Houston, TX 77081
Phone: (713)271-9703
Fax: (713)271-9704
E-mail: americaptodos88@yahoo.com
Web: www.americaparatodos.org

FIEL
President
PO Box 2765
Cypress, TX 77410-2765
Phone: (281)225-4037
Fax: (281)225-4037
E-mail: fiel_houston@hotmail.com
Web: www.myspace.com/fiel_2007

Cell and texts: (713)459-8923