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SPEAKING OUT ON SANCTUARY: On Monday, August 29, 2016 Marco Mejia and I were interviewed on our local community radio station, KBOO. We spoke as activists with the Interfaith Movement for Immigrant Justice about the need for sanctuary and safe places for refugees and immigrants fleeing violence in their countries. The theme was Immigrant Injustice and its impact on the community. Here is the link to the broadcast for your listening pleasure. www.kboo.org/media/52130-current-immigration-policies-and-injustices-they-inflict-entire-community#sthash.WBswHkAn.Z65Bu27h.dpuf POLITICS AND IMMIGRATION: This week the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump made headlines with a visit to Mexico City and a meeting with the President of Mexico. Later that day he issued his call once again to build an enormous wall dividing Mexico and the United States. What people seem to forget is that there already is a wall along the southern border - all 700 miles of it. PBS Newshour that evening carried a segment in Nogales, Arizona interviewing a U.S. resident about the wall - "totally ineffective," she said. Others echoed the same message. Todd Miller, author of Border Patrol Nation, has an informative article posted online at Salon magazine, www.salon.com/2016/08/28/the-great-mexican-wall-deception-trumps-america-already-exists-on-the-border_partner/. Read it as it contains great information about current immigration practices. The bottom line is a bigger, better wall is not the answer ! FAITH LEADERS' RESPONSE TO TRUMP IMMIGRATION PROPOSAL: I received via email today some good "moral and ethical" statements based on a variety of faith perspectives as to why a Trump-like proposal does not reflect USA values nor that of people of faith. It is too long to paste into this blog but I am putting a link to it - press_releasefaithleaders090216.docx A RESPONSE TO ANTI-IMMIGRANT RHETORIC - Buy a tshirt from VOZ, the day laborer center in Portland, Oregon or make your own. Wear it everywhere you go and if someone asks you, why? I answer - we are a nation of immigrants/todos somos immigrantes. It is something to be proud of - not that we have always treated immigrants to our land well or the original native peoples, but we are working on it. Be proud of your immigrant roots and share your story. 
1 Comment
deborah sposito
9/10/2016 08:38:17 am
Thank you for the update and links. Very helpful. Despite the current hostile, racist and neo-fascist climate in the US and abroad, I continue to be shocked by the proposal to build a wall and policy of deportation. I am shocked by differentiating human beings and their treatment based solely upon manufactured and imaginary "official documents." Slavery had official documents, tons of entries in long columns of stock and cargo which described actual individuals, adults, elders, children and infants. African people were violently and forcibly removed from their home communities often sent to their death. If violent and forced removal happens now in the US, its called deportation, returning people to their countries of birth. If a woman or man or child is deported to their home country, a country like Guatemala that is unwilling to invest in its people, what waits for them? Why did they flee to begin with? I signed a petition this week to stop the deportation of a man from Honduras whose father and brothers were killed because they would not surrender their land to organized crime members or was it drug cartels or perhaps military? At this moment, if it is an armed group targeting the most vulnerable in our communities, what does it matter? We cannot do nothing as the US and Mexico through its political and financial agreement with the US forcibly deports youths and adults fleeing economic and racial exploitation, poverty, family separation, marginalization and violence. International law says we must hear the cases of people fleeing before deporting them. And with minors we cannot deport. This is why I am shocked. Have we forgotten all that came before? If we do nothing to stop the injustice, we are complicit in killing off a new generation in Central America. Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
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AuthorMy life has been about crossing borders and cultures and building bridges across the boundaries that normally divide. Have you crossed any borders in your life? Archives
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