Obama announces halt to DREAMer Deportation, effective immediately

June 15, 2012

Causa applauds Administration's announcement to defer action against undocumented youth brought to the U.S. as small children

Today, President Obama announced that the policy of prosecutorial discretion—which allows immigration agents to defer deportation of low-risk, non criminal undocumented immigrants—will be expanded to all DREAM eligible youth. This is a huge win for the immigration reform movement, and comes as a result of years of tireless mobilization and agitation by DREAMers, undocumented immigrants, and immigrants’ rights activists and politicians.

The expansion in policy means that effective today, there will be an immediate halt to all deportation proceedings for DREAMers, and all DREAMers who are already in deportation proceedings will get deferred action (lasting two years) and work permits, if they meet eligibility. Any DREAMer who meets the criteria can come forward and apply for deferred action and a work permit, as well.

“Today’s announcement from the Obama Administration is great for every taxpayer in America” said Francisco Lopez, Executive Director, Causa Oregon. “Instead of wasting precious taxpayer dollars and resources on rounding up students and young people who did nothing wrong, instead of wasting tax dollars on lawyers persecuting us, instead taking away our freedom by locking us up, and condemning us to deportation - the government and every American taxpayer can now benefit when we start jobs or businesses, and become hardworking, taxpaying, full participants in America's economic recovery."

Lopez added, "While this is an exciting moment and a great first step for the immigration reform movement and a product of the hard work of students, immigrant rights groups, organized labor, faith and community leaders, it is not an ultimate victory. This policy expansion still does not provide a path to citizenship for DREAMers and there is still a dire need for a national DREAM Act." 

Here are some of the details of the new policy:

To be eligible you must

• Be between 15 years or older and 30 years or younger may apply

• Be in US for at least 5 (as of today, 6/15/12)

• Have to have maintained continuous residence (relatively flexible interpretation)

There are no restriction on when you can apply (i.e. no window that closes after a year, for example)

Grants of Deferred Application are for 2 years and are renewable

Criminal Ineligibility: If you have been convicted of a felony, a serious misdemeanor or three minor misdemeanors not all stemming from same incident, then you are not eligible.

It is estimated that as a result of this policy extension, nearly 1 million DREAMers will be spared from deportation. This is truly an exciting day

Click here to thank the White House for keeping their promise to provide administrative relief.

Press Release from DHS on the announcement

Read more »

Reform Immigration FOR America To Partner with Faith Community on "Home for the Holidays" Campaign to Keep Families Together

For Immediate Release
November 16, 2009

Contact:
Shuya Ohno
sohno@immigrationforum.org
(202) 309-5645 cell

Reform Immigration FOR America To Partner with Faith Community on "Home for the Holidays" Campaign to Keep Families Together

Campaign to Collect Thousands of Postcards Targeting Members of Congress

Washington, DC - The Reform Immigration FOR America Campaign is proud to partner with the "Home of the Holidays" campaign in an effort to push Congress to action on comprehensive immigration reform. Today, faith leaders across America gathered to launch a major escalation of the faith community's efforts to press Congress into addressing this issue. Besides major events in four states, "Home for the Holidays" will collect 250,000 postcards targeting Members of Congress. Reform Immigration FOR America will be contributing 12,000 postcards to this effort.

"People of faith will be crucial to our efforts to finally pass comprehensive immigration reform and we are thrilled to be working so closely with them. People of faith recognize the moral obligation posed by our broken immigration system and their leadership is welcome. Their effort brings together many diverse faiths, the scale is unprecedented, and the effort is timely. Our failed immigration system is keeping thousands of immigrant families apart - and not just for the holidays. America needs comprehensive immigration reform that is fair and humane, and finally resolves this issue for the American people once and for all," said Rich Stolz, campaign manager for the Reform Immigration FOR America Campaign.

###
ABOUT THE CAMPAIGN: The Reform Immigration FOR America campaign is a coalition of more than 600 faith, labor, business, progressive, and immigration reform groups that have joined together to get comprehensive immigration reform passed. For more information please visit www.reformimmigrationforamerica.org or www.reformamigratoriaproamerica.org

CAUSA, Oregon's Immigrant Rights Coalition, is a member of the Reform Immigration FOR America coalition and is the largest Latino and Latina civil and human rights and advocacy organization in the Pacific Northwest. We work to defend and advance immigrant rights through coordination with local, state, and national coalitions and allies. For more information, visit www.causaoregon.org

Read more »

CAUSA: Comprehensive Immigration Reform Needed To Keep Country Secure, Administration Committed to Reform says Napolitano

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 13, 2009

Contact:
Francisco Lopez, Executive Director, 503.269.5694
Erik Sorensen, Communications Director, 503.488.0263

Secretary Napolitano: Comprehensive Immigration Reform Needed To Keep Country Secure, Administration Committed to Reform

Salem, Ore--In a speech before the Center for American Progress, Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano reiterated the Obama Administration's commitment to passage of Comprehensive Immigration Reform. Napolitano, a former border state governor who has a deep understanding of the complexity of immigration issues, has been designated by the President as the administration's point person on immigration reform.

During today's speech, Secretary Napolitano said that she expects to see legislation in early 2010 and that, "The President is committed to this issue because the need for immigration reform is so clear. This administration does not shy away from taking on the big challenges of the 21st century, challenges that have been ignored too long and hurt our families and businesses. When Congress is ready to act, we'll be ready to support them."

In discussing the failed attempt to pass Immigration Reform in 2007, Napolitano said, "I've been dealing hands on with immigration issues since 1993, so trust me: I know a major shift when I see one, and what I have seen makes reform far more attainable this time around." She went on to say that faith and law enforcement leaders are speaking out about the vital need for reform, as well as business and labor leaders.

Napolitano said that the Department of Homeland Security is ready to implement reform saying that, "We've ended a year-long backlog for background checks on applicants for green cards and naturalization. We've expanded the opportunity for a widow to gain legal status here, despite the untimely death of her U.S. citizen spouse. We've launched a new interactive website that allows people to receive information about the status of their immigration cases by email or text message, and we have reduced the time it takes to process those cases."

CAUSA, a partner in the national Reform Immigration FOR America campaign, joins with community organizations and advocates from around the nation in being ready to partner with Secretary Napolitano and the Obama Administration as they push for a humane and just comprehensive immigration reform.

"We are committed to achieving immigration reform that deals with our broken system in a humane and fair way," said Francisco Lopez, Executive Director of CAUSA. "And although Secretary Napolitano continues to express support for enforcement policies that have proven to do more harm than good, she did acknowledge today that it is time to move beyond the failed enforcement-only strategy of the past 10 years and begin the process of fixing the system. CAUSA, our members and allies around the nation and in Oregon continue to be ready to get to work with the President and Congressional leaders to make reform a reality. We look to Congress and the President to get this process underway sooner rather than later."

###

CAUSA, Oregon's Immigrant Rights Coalition, is a member of the Reform Immigration FOR America coalition and is the largest Latino and Latina civil and human rights and advocacy organization in the Pacific Northwest. We work to defend and advance immigrant rights through coordination with local, state, and national coalitions and allies. For more information, visit www.causaoregon.org

ABOUT THE CAMPAIGN: The Reform Immigration FOR America campaign is a coalition of more than 600 faith, labor, business, progressive, and immigration reform groups that have joined together to get comprehensive immigration reform passed. For more information please visit www.reformimmigrationforamerica.org or www.reformamigratoriaproamerica.org

Read more »

Obama Administration Addresses Detention Crisis with Change in Policy

The Department of Homeland Security announced today that it will change the way it conducts oversight and accountability in America’s immigration detention facilities. Specifically, it will make changes to policies regarding an immigrant detention facility in Texas.

In a press release, the National Immigration Forum, the leading immigrant advocacy organization in the country, expressed they were pleased that the administration will take important steps to address immigration detention conditions that are currently a "national embarrassment".

Ali Noorani, Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum, said that the “the single most important thing we can do with regard to immigrant detention is to reduce the need for its use for millions of non-criminals, families, and workers in the first place.”

Noorani added that the we need a functioning legal immigration system -- one that brings millions of immigrants living here illegally into legal status, rather than attempting to enforce our way out of our current situation.

He finished by saying that the Forum “is supportive of the changes announced to the detention system and hope this signals more oversight and accountability throughout DHS and our immigration enforcement system”.

According to the New York Times, among the changes DHS will make is to stop sending families to the notorious T. Don Hutto Residential Center, a former state prison near Austin, Texas. The facility was sued by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) after news coverage showed young children behind razor wire.

An ACLU lawsuit settled in 2007 brought to light how children under 10 years old were confined for up to a year in “family cells with open toilets, with only one hour of schooling a day”. Children said they were threatened by guards with separation from their parents--many asylum-seekers from around the world. Only after judicial enforcement of the settlement were children granted such “liberties" as "wearing pajamas at night and taking crayons into family cells" said the New York Times.

Although immigration reform advocates see the Administration’s action on the Detention Crisis as a step in the right direction, passage of humane and just immigration reform legislation will offer the only workable solution to our nation’s dysfunctional and unjust immigration system.

For more on the Administration’s immigration detention policy, read the full story at the New York Times by linking here. To read the full release from the National Immigration Forum, please link here

Additional Resources

The Math of Immigration Detention http://www.immigrationforum.org/images/uploads/MathofImmigrationDetention.pdf

Summaries of Recent Reports on Immigration Detention 2007 – 2009
http://www.immigrationforum.org/images/uploads/DetentionReportsSummaries2007-2009.pdf

Read more »

Rev. David Ostendorf: ICEing the White House

Rev. David L. Ostendorf is the managing editor for Imagine 2050. Contributors to the Imagine 2050 include activists, immigrants, artists and students who are invested in a future nation that embraces multiculturalism and tolerance.

ICEing the White House

July 15, 2009

By Rev. David L. Ostendorf
www.imagine2050.net

Let’s face it. With the expansion of the 287(g) program, the new employer audit initiative, the growth of the Border Patrol, and the relentless, unconscionable construction of the border fence, the Obama Administration has completely succumbed to the ICE (and Democratic Party) enforcement agenda.

The new and expanded agreements that enable local and state law enforcement agencies to act as ICE surrogates build on a program (287(g))that has wreaked havoc across the country. In those jurisdictions where the agreements prevail, no immigrant has been safe from zealous law officers who turn a minor traffic stop, for example, into a wider deportation roundup. Instead of curbing the practice, the White House is expanding it into even more jurisdictions.

Continue article at http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2009/07/15/iceing-the-white-house/

Read more »

White House Meeting on Immigration Reform Postponed

For Immediate Release
June 13, 2009

Contact:
Francisco Lopez, Executive Director: (503) 269-5694
Erik Sorensen, Communications Director: (503) 488-0263

White House Meeting on Immigration Reform Postponed
Patience wearing thin in Latino and Immigrant Communities
Salem, Ore-Yesterday, the White House announced that it would postpone a meeting with a bipartisan group of Congressional Leaders to discuss Immigration Reform. The meeting, scheduled for June 17, was announced last month after the Obama administration and Congressional leaders had been signaling their commitment to pass comprehensive immigration reform this year.

The White House meeting would have come one week after 800 advocates from across the country visited their congressional representatives as part of the launch of the Reform Immigration For America Campaign.

Allies in Washington D.C. are saying although the White House meeting delay is a mistake, it is not a setback. Ali Noorani, Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum, issued a statement on behalf of the Reform Immigration FOR America campaign saying, "We think delaying the meeting is a mistake. Momentum is building for comprehensive immigration reform with more and more Americans demanding solutions. The President is too smart not to move on immigration reform this year. We don't see this as a signal that President Obama is stepping back from reform."

With strong public support in polls and hundreds of thousands of calls and faxes into Congressional offices generated by the Reform Immigration for America campaign last week, the lights are green for passage of a Comprehensive Reform bill this year.

"The bipartisan meeting at the White House is very important and needs to happen soon", said Francisco Lopez, Executive Director of CAUSA. "Patience is wearing thin in the Latino and Immigrant Communities and President Obama needs to follow through with the commitment he made to more than 10 million Latinos that voted in the last Presidential Election."

Starting Monday, CAUSA will join its allies around the nation in generating calls, faxes and emails in the White House encouraging the bipartisan meeting to go forward.

For more information on the Reform Immigration For America campaign visit, www.reformimmigrationforamerica.org

CAUSA, Oregon's Immigrant Rights Coalition, is the largest Hispanic civil and human rights and advocacy organization in the Pacific Northwest. For more information, visit www.causaoregon.org

Read more »

Community Organizations Energized by President Obama's Call for Immigration Reform this Year

For Immediate Release
April 9, 2009

Contact:
Francisco Lopez, Executive Director, 503.984.6816
Erik Sorensen, Communications Director, 503.488.0263

Community Organizations Energized by President Obama's Call for Immigration Reform this Year
Statement by Francisco Lopez, Executive Director of CAUSA, Oregon's Immigrant Rights Coalition
Salem, Ore.-Today's news on the front page of the New York Times that President Obama will move on immigration reform this year has community organizations across the country ramping up to achieve a just and humane immigration solution. Story here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/09/us/politics/09immig.html?ref=global-home

"We endorse President Obama's call for immigration reform and admire his courage to fight for something we all know must get done. This is the kind of bold and visionary action we expect from our political leaders. Climbing our way out of this economic crisis means forward thinking policies that include fixing a broken immigration system that has created a servant class in our midst. America's economy cannot recover if we allow 12 million immigrants to continue to live and work in the margins of our society.

Obstructionist will throw everything at this Administration's attempts to create a society which recognizes the inherent value and worth in us all. For too long we have shrunk in the face of key decisions that must be made to get our country back on track. We will not allow this to happen.

We've seen first hand the pain of immigrant families ripped apart by unjust raids. Our communities and our nation have suffered long enough."

###
CAUSA is Oregon's statewide, grassroots immigrant rights coalition. We work to defend and advance immigrant rights through coordination with local, state, and national coalitions and allies.

CAUSA is a member of the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM), a coalition of grassroots community organizations nationwide, including statewide immigrant rights coalitions, organizing networks, faith-based groups, and low-income and other networks organized around ethnicity or national origin, working on behalf of comprehensive immigration reform and immigrant rights. FIRM is convened by the Center for Community Change.

Read more »

President Obama to Push for Passage of Immigration Bill

President Obama today has announced that he will begin addressing the country’s immigration system this year which includes a path for undocumented immigrants to become legal citizens.

A report appearing in the New York Times said the President’s would recognize millions of undocumented immigrants who have already been working here. According to independent studies of census data, there is no evidence of any wholesale exodus of illegal immigrant workers given the current economic recession in the U.S.

Currently two-thirds of all Americans consistently support a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Americans of every political stripe recognize that fixing our broken system is in the country’s interest, and that these immigrants are already our co-workers, our neighbors, and frequently our family members.

For more on this report, please link here.

Read more »

Cardinal Francis George Calls for an End to Immigration Raids

On Saturday, Cardinal Francis George, the President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, called on the Obama Administration to stop the raids on Immigrant Families. This is what he had to say:

“I stand with other faith leaders and all of you gathered here today and with every immigrant family in this nation to call on our government to end immigration raids and the separation of families.”

Read the full story from the Associated Press by linking here.

Read more »

White House to Hold First Town Hall Online Tomorrow

Tomorrow morning at 8:30am PST, President Obama will be holding an online town hall. As one of the priorities of the Obama Administration is to open up the White House to citizens, they are taking advantage of the internet to allow people to participate in the first ever online White House Town Hall.

Currently, questions are being taken via online form. Those interested in submitting a question or voting on one already submitted can visit www.whitehouse.gov/openforquestions Questions will be accepted until 6:30am PST.

To submit or vote for your favorite questions on Fair and Just Comprehensive Reform add the term "immigration" in the search queue at the top. Be sure to let President Obama know that you want him to support Immigration Reform and a halt to raids that divide families.

Read more »

Napolitano to Investigate Bellingham ICE Raid

According to the Associated Press, the raid that took place in Bellingham Washington on Tuesday came as a surprise to Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano.

Napolitano told lawmakers that she was unaware of the raid and was only briefed about it on Wednesday morning.

By Wednesday afternoon, Napolitano was calling for an investigation into the raid and how it was conducted.

"I want to get to the bottom of this as well," she said. She said work-site enforcement needs to be focused on the employers.

The backlash from around the country over the raid was very large and came from civil rights, faith and immigrant advocacy organizations. The collective message was that inhumane raids must be stopped, and comprehensive immigration reform passed.

The AP spoke with Marissa Graciosa of the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM), a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group.

She said “it is disappointing that ICE has executed a raid since Obama took office saying the raids were destructive and ineffective.”

"We urge President Obama to deliver on his promise of change by stopping the raids, and signing just and humane immigration reform into law," Graciosa said.

The response from the Whitehouse with Napalitano calling for an investigation is a great victory for pro-immigrant organizations and advocates and the first step first step to passing just and humane Immigration Reform.

Read more »

Raids hurt our businesses, our communities, all workers and immigrants

Yesterday, 28 workers, including 3 mothers, were chained and arrested in a factory in Bellingham, Washington as part of ICE enforcement operations.

In this time of economic hardship, it is completely unacceptable for the Obama Administration to be executing raids on workers, businesses and communities.

Raids not only hurt our businesses, our communities, all workers and immigrants, but they victimize the very people that helped to bring change to the White House and elect President Obama.

These inhumane raids must be stopped, and comprehensive immigration reform passed NOW! It is time for the President to hear from us.

We must fight back against this first worksite raid. We must tell the Obama Administration:

Stop the Raids, Pass Just and Humane Immigration Reform
CALL the WHITE HOUSE NOW at 202-456-1414 and tell President Barack Obama:

• The raid in Washington state is unacceptable, and hurts all of our communities.
• He must stop the raids, and pass comprehensive immigration reform - NOW!

or
FAX a letter to: 202-456-2461

Read more »

Immigrant Action Day this Saturday

This Saturday, CAUSA will host it's annual Immigrant Action Day at Chemeketa Community College in Salem.

At this year's event, speakers will provide information about:

Comprehensive immigration reform possibilities under the Obama Administration

Impact of Oregon's stricter driver's license rules

Civil and legal rights

Advocacy Efforts at the State and National Level

Annual Immigrant Action Day
Date: Saturday, February 28, 2009
Time: 10 a.m. until 3:00 p.m
Location: Chemeketa Community College, 4000 Lancaster Drive NE, Building 2, Salem

Sponsors: LUS Chemeketa Community College Chapter and CAUSA

For more information, please contact Francisco López at (503) 269-5694

Read more »