Veterans of four organizations fighting for true immigration reform participated in a teleconference organized to supplement the reporting efforts of journalists at ethnic and community news organizations covering pressing immigration issues, especially in light of the Trump Administration’s hostile actions and policies.
The four veterans were Sameera Hafiz, Senior Policy Strategist, Immigrant Legal Resource Center; Angelica Salas, Executive Director, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA); Zahra Billoo, Executive Director, Council on American Islamic Relations-San Francisco Bay Area; and Adoubou Traore, Executive Director, African Advocacy Network. Conference moderated by Sandy Close, Director, Ethnic Media Services.
What follows is the Q&A portion of the 60-minute-plus forum. Ethnic Media Services and Ready California are based in the Golden State but what’s taking place there mirrors what is happening nationally. A transcript of the Q&A has been edited for style to make for easier reading.
“At the federal level, we’re very much on the defensive. Because what we see is that, while our two senators in the continuing resolution fight, the budgetary fight, really stood with immigrant families. That couldn’t be said for other states. So as much power as we have, we’re still having a very difficult time. In the House of Representatives in the state of California, the majority of our state representatives are actually voting in favor of immigrant families.
Question 3, Manny Otiko with California Black Media. “I see a lot of black and brown people being targeted for deportation. I don’t see people from European countries facing deportation. There’s heavy, Italian, Irish immigrant groups on the east coast and Russian immigrant groups, and there must be some illegals over there. It seems to me that these deportations are just a form of ethnic cleansing?
Question 4, Henrietta Burroughs with East Alto Today, directly addressed Saamera Hafiz. “What do you think is the best-case scenario in terms of the legislation that’s now before the Senate?” [Note: The four Senate bills subsequently failed].
Question 5, Sunaina Barathi with India West Newspaper, regarding the Morton memo of 2011 which prioritized deportations. “ICE seems to be ignoring the provisions of this memo in choosing who is getting deported. It seems to be rather random, and I wonder if you could comment of the future of the Morton memo, and whether you expect it to be rescinded?
Zahra Billoo, Executive Director, Council on American Islamic Relations-SF Bay Area, responded. The Morton memo has been rescinded. That was the executive orders that were put in early in the beginning of the President’s [administration]. So, at this point, all those prosecutorial equities, et cetera, are no longer, have not been, actually, in effect for the last year.
Question 6, Peter White with Tennessee Tribune. “What’s the worst-case scenario? The news is all bad, it seems. So there’s supposed to be these enforcement things that are gonna get rid of bad folks that we don’t want here, that don’t share our values. But the realities that I’m hearing is that they’re sort of rounding up and deporting long-time residents who pay taxes and have raised their children and have jobs et cetera. So I guess my question is that. What’s the way forward. Let’s say one of two of the least objectionable bills passes in the Senate, but what happens when it gets to the House, in terms of the bad news?
“We just had a situation here in Los Angeles where there is a very well-known area where people go and sit down and eat and shop and ICE just showed up and started asking all the employees of the different businesses for their social security cards. And then they are now gonna be checking those social security cards then go back and figure out who is undocumented and whether or not, or they’re false documents.
So I think is that the kind of country that we wanna live in? And I think all of us need to answer that question and what are we gonna do about it?
“And that’s why at the African Advocacy Network, not only working along with other community organizations, serving all kinds of races, but we also pay a very specific attention to working with groups like Black Alliance for Just Immigration. The Black Immigration Network. But, of course, there’s much more work to do. And that’s why I say, this a time of solidarity. This is a time of opportunity for us to catch up on things that we didn’t look closely at. But again, in face of adversity, we have no choice but getting together and going together and facing this and fighting together.
Wrapping Up, Sandy Close, moderator. “What should we as journalists be watching for? We are all holding our collective breath and what is the key thing in the news we should be anticipating, or on the ground, even invisible?
Sameera Hafiz responds first. “I think that this moment that we’re in is just the moment of fight for immigrant justice and racial justice, this is a long-term fight. And so we need to stay focused and keep looking at the stories and highlighting the stories and voices of directly impacted people and we as a movement are gonna stay focused on this long-term fight for justice.
More than two years have passed, they haven’t figured out what is going on, and people’s lives are on hold and are deeply impacted by these racist policies.