Update to last night's entry:
The papers didn't pick it up. City officials don't know anything about it. But I've spoken with eyewitnesses that saw uniformed men take away 4 or 5 hispanic immigrants from their apartment around the hours of four and six on Monday morning. I'm not sure as to what this means or what comes next or what I should do. Two cars and a van drop by an apartment and take people away and life goes on in Englewood, NJ. Just another day. Numbing. Accion y paciencia. Accion y paciencia. Accion y paciencia. Accion y paciencia. Accion y paciencia...
-------------------------------------------------
Come what may. Earlier this evening I was informed that there was an ICE raid in Englewood on Palisades Avenue. I've no confirmation of this from any news sources. Just fyi NJ, ICE is Immigration and Customs Enforcement (US Department of Homeland Security; formerly parts of Immigration & Naturalization Service and US Customs). And I will assume that this happened and I am not surprised. After all, the United Patriots of America, UPA (with ties to the Minutemen Project, vigilantes that patrol the border) has intimidated day laborers in Bergenfield. And there's Bogota, of course!
----------------------------------------------------
From an informative email:
END THE ATTACK ON IMMIGRANTS!
DEFEND THE RIGHTS OF ALL WHO LIVE AND WORK IN NEW JERSEY!
STATE-WIDE SPEAK-OUT AND PROTEST MEETING
Saturday March 31 1:00 PM
Paul Robeson CenterBusch Campus
600 Bartholomew Rd
Piscataway, NJ
Immigrants in New Jersey, as in the rest of the United States, are facing increasing attacks. ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids are being stepped up, tearing families apart, detaining and deporting those who have lived here for years. Demagogic town governments are taking anti-immigrant measures. Morristown, for example, is planning to deputize its police as ICE agents. Massive workplace raids like the recent one in New Bedford, Mass. can happen at any time. A New Jersey radio station, 101.5, has called for people to turn in their neighbors as suspected undocumented immigrants, encouraging vigilantism.
The attacks on migrants are attacks on all of us. They are aimed at maintaining an underclass of workers who are too terrified to assert their rights to decent pay, working conditions and living conditions. No one, not even the government, wants to deport 12 million undocumented immigrants who are vital to the economy. The attacks and anti-immigrant laws aim to drive down the cost of all labor, benefiting employers, pitting worker against worker, and hurting us all.
We are fighting back, immigrants and native-born united! We are speaking out against the attacks and the demagogic proposal in towns like Morristown's and Freehold. We are starting to organize a Rapid Response Network which will give aid to those confronting ICE raids or employer abuses of immigrants. We are joining with organizations across the country to organize a Second Great Boycott.
Speak out for the rights of ALL!
We invite your organization's endorsement and participation in this event and in an April 3 noon press conference in New Brunswick
Endorsing organizations(list in formation):
NJ May 1 Coalition
IRATE/First Friends
NJ Civil Rights Defense Committee
Philippine Forum
United Day Laborers of Freehold
And from a New York Times Article, good old Freehold.
PUBLIC LIVES; Back in the Fight He Picked Decades Ago
Article Tools Sponsored By
By LYNDA RICHARDSON
Published: March 17, 2004
CESAR A. PERALES, the president of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, is revved up. But he is not losing his cool. (He is too cool for that.) He is talking about the fund's wranglings in federal court over the attempt by Freehold Borough in Monmouth County, N.J., to prevent day laborers from gathering at a vacant lot to scout for work.
''The question of the treatment of day laborers is so flagrant, I feel it viscerally,'' Mr. Perales says, leaning over to emphasize the point. ''This is to me as horrific as the segregation that the government imposed in the South. We're seeing local governments treating undocumented workers in a similar fashion, marginalizing them, not wanting them to live where they live. This is a fight that will take a long time.''
On May Day 2007, National Immigrant Solidarity Network is calling for a multi-ethnic, decentralized, multi-topic and multi-tactic national day of mobilization to support immigrant workers rights.
Our ten points of unity (based on our Jan 29, 2007 open letter to the Congress):
1) No to anti-immigrant legislation, and the criminalization of the immigrant communities.
2) No to militarization of the border.
3) No to the immigrant detention and deportation.
4) No to the guest worker program.
5) No to employer sanction and "no match" letters.
6) Yes to a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
7) Yes to speedy family reunification.
8) Yes to civil rights and humane immigration law.
9) Yes to labor rights and living wages for all workers.
10) Yes to the education and LGBT immigrant legislation.
I've no doubt Garden State for Equality will lend their muscle.
Good thing, many (if not most) of our leading hispanic organizations in New Jersey support guest worker programs and the militarization of the border. People just lose their way sometimes, or forget...
(Can't find the letter documenting this right now, but when I do, I'll post it.)
