In Solidarity with Migrants and Asylum Seekers

Posted on by Joseph Thomas Posted in Blog, Cultural Policy, Featured Story

ALIENS, IMMIGRANTS & OTHER EVILDOERS written and performed by José Torres-Tama at ROOTS Weekend-Dallas. Photo: Melisa Cardona. 

What is unfolding on the border is a human rights crisis. We at ROOTS stand with migrants and asylum seekers. We oppose the separation of families; we oppose the detention of families. We oppose this administration’s hyper-criminalization of immigrants, evidenced by the inhumane and unnecessary “zero tolerance policy”, mass trials, and fast-growing detention center industry (whose stocks rose when Trump signed the Executive Order).

We are clear that the Executive Order, signed Wednesday, is meant to quell protest, not actually address the human rights crisis that this administration has escalated. The order continues the zero tolerance policy, challenges the Flores agreement (which may result in children being detained indefinitely along with their parents), and contains no provisions for reuniting the families already torn apart by this administration’s brutal policies.

We acknowledge that the executive branch of our government is using the already punitive immigration and incarceration systems that are in place to create a government-made social and humanitarian crisis.

We acknowledge the US’s colonial role in decades-long economic and military destabilization of the home countries these migrants and asylum seekers have been forced to leave.

We acknowledge that this is US history repeating itself. Under nearly 250 years of chattel slavery, families were routinely torn apart. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries the Bureau of Indian Affairs forced Native children into abusive boarding schools hundreds and thousands of miles away from their communities. During the 1920s and 30s federal and state governments deported Mexicans and Mexican American citizens on a mass scale and kept limited records – estimates range from 400,000 to 2 million. Euphemistically termed “tent cities” currently being erected in the desert echo the imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

We acknowledge that criminalizing and imprisoning migrants and asylum seekers is connected to this country’s out of control incarceration system – the US locks up more people than any other country in the world and disproportionately imprisons those who are Indigenous, Black, and Brown.

We call for an end to family detention. We call for swift reuniting of the families that have been separated. We urge our members, supporters, friends, and allies to stay vigilant, to stay active, stay informed, stay vocal.

In solidarity,

Alternate ROOTS Staff and Executive Committee

. . .

Resources & Actions

  • Continue calling your elected officials.
  • Protests and actions are being planned around the country. Research who is organizing in your local community and forward local efforts on to joseph@alternateroots.org so we can help signal boost grassroots organizing.

Places to donate/volunteer/support/join up with:

  • #Not1More: a campaign made of individuals, organizations, artists, and allies to expose, confront, and overcome unjust immigration laws.
  • Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights: Founded nearly 15 years ago, the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights (GLAHR) is a non-profit, community-based organization that educates, organizes, and empowers Latino immigrants across Georgia to defend and advance their civil and human rights.
  • Mijente: a movement that is not just Pro-Latinx, but pro-Black, pro-woman, pro-queer, pro-poor. Check out the Chinga la Migra tour and webseries.
  • Black Alliance for Just Immigration: BAJI educates and engages African American and black immigrant communities to organize and advocate for racial, social and economic justice.
  • Puente Arizona: a grassroots migrant justice organization based in Phoenix, Arizona; we develop, educate, and empower migrant communities to protect and defend our families and ourselves.
  • Sanctuary Movement: A growing movement of immigrant and over 800 faith communities doing what Congress and the Administration refuse to do: protect and stand with immigrants facing deportation.
  • Women Watch Afrika: a non-profit, grassroots, social justice organization whose primary goals are the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, the promotion of the social and economic development, and health equity of women and girls, and the acculturation of immigrant and refugee women arriving to the United States from African nations. Women Watch Afrika was part of organizing in the Atlanta area that led to this recent win.
  • RAICES (Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services) is the largest immigration nonprofit in Texas offering free and low-cost legal services to immigrant children and families.
  • Texas Civil Rights Project is a leader in protecting the constitutional rights of immigrants and in 2018 we will continue pursuing litigation against federal immigration agencies that refuse to comply with the constitutional right to a fair legal process for all immigrants and asylum seekers.

UPDATED 7/6/2018:

Connections: ,
Alternate ROOTS supports the creation and presentation of original art that is rooted in communities of place, tradition or spirit. We are a group of artists and cultural organizers based in the South creating a better world together. As Alternate ROOTS, we call for social and economic justice and are working to dismantle all forms of oppression—everywhere.