TAKE ACTION: Time is now for TPS for Haiti
Immigrations & Customs Enforcement earlier today announced they were suspending deportations of Haitians in the United States:
STATEMENT BY DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY MATT CHANDLER:
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Assistant Secretary John Morton today halted all removals to Haiti for the time being in response to the devastation caused by yesterday’s earthquake. ICE continues to closely monitor the situation.Jesuit Refugee Service/USA believes the U.S. should grant Temporary Protected Status to Haitians in the U.S., and we urge you to take action today to urge the White House and Congress to grant TPS to Haitian nationals in the United States, allowing the Haitian government the time it needs to invest its limited resources into rebuilding the country and offering emergency relief to its suffering citizens following a devastating earthquake which rocked the nation on the afternoon of January 12, 2010.
Read the rest of this entry »Pope prays for people of Haiti
At the end of today’s general audience Pope Benedict XVI launched an appeal “for the dramatic situation currently being experienced in Haiti.”
“My thoughts go in particular to the population hit just a few hours ago by a devastating earthquake which has caused serious loss of human life, large numbers of homeless and missing people, and vast material damage.
“I invite everyone to join my prayers to the Lord for the victims of this catastrophe and for those who mourn their loss. I give assurances of my spiritual closeness to people who have lost their homes and to everyone who, in various ways, has been affected by this terrible calamity, imploring God to bring them consolation and relief in their suffering.
“I appeal to the generosity of all people so that these our brothers and sisters who are experiencing a moment of need and suffering may not lack our concrete solidarity and the effective support of the international community. The Catholic Church will not fail to move immediately, through her charitable institutions, to meet the most immediate needs of the population.”
UN calls for international support in wake of devastating Haiti quake
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today issued an urgent call to the international community to assist Haiti following yesterday’s catastrophic earthquake that has devastated the impoverished Caribbean nation’s capital.
Buildings and infrastructure in Port-au-Prince suffered extensive damage, while basic services, including water and electricity are near the brink of collapse. The full extent of casualties, which could number in the hundreds, is still unknown, Mr. Ban told reporters in New York.
“There is no doubt that we are facing a major humanitarian emergency and that a major relief effort will be required,” he said.
Expressing gratitude to nations rushing aid to the earthquake’s victims, he called for the world to “come to Haiti’s aid in this hour of need.”
Read the rest of this entry »Statement on Haiti from Jesuit Refugee Service
Jesuit Refugee Service – Latin America & Caribbean Region shares with the people of the area the great pain wrought by successive natural disasters that have struck our sister country of Haiti.
We raise our prayers and encourage the commitment to solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Haiti, guided by the example of the Good Samaritan of the Gospel.
Aid to Haiti will be coordinated through the JRS Dominican Republic office, which is under the direction of Fr. Mario Serrano, S.J.
Additionally, the centers of the Society of Jesus in the Dominican Rep. (Santo Domingo: Centro Bono and Alberto Hurtado; Santiago: Centro Bellarmine and Cephas Dajabón: Border Solidarity) have established a support network to aid earthquake victims in Haiti.
– Fr. Alfredo Infante, S.J., Regional Director of JRS – LAC.
About Jesuit Refugee Service
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Study: legalizing undocumented immigrants boosts economy
The Los Angeles Times reports on the results of a study by UCLA that says legalizing undocumented immigrants would benefit the U.S. economy.
The report said that legalization, along with a program that allows for future immigration based on the labor market, would create jobs, increase wages and generate more tax revenue. Comprehensive immigration reform would add an estimated $1.5 trillion to the U.S. gross domestic product over 10 years, according to the report.
“This is not about bringing in a lot of workers. This is about your neighbors and if we are better off where everybody in the economy has the ability to fight for their families and to contribute more to the economy rather than staying in the shadows,” said the author, Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda, an associate professor with the UCLA Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies.
National Migration Week: Renewing Hope, Seeking Justice
Renewing Hope, Seeking Justice is the theme of the 2010 National Migration Week, held January 3 – 9. The observance began over 25 years ago by the bishops to be a moment for Catholics to take stock of the wide diversity of the Church and the ministries serving them. As the face of the local churches continue to change, these materials are becoming more and more necessary. The materials created for National Migration Week also provide an important educational resource that can be used by individuals, families, schools, and parishes to learn about the complex issues surrounding migration phenomena.
2010 National Migration Week Poster Created and Designed by Brother Mickey McGrath
Jesuit Refugee Service/USA supports National Migration Week. Learn more here.
Detained immigrant, community leader, joins hunger strike
Two days before New Year’s 2010, Homeland Security shocked New Yorkers when the agency detained community leader Jean Montrevil. Now held in Pennsylvania’s York County Prison, Montrevil is beginning a hunger strike. “I am fasting side by side with nearly 60 other detainees to take a stand against this horrific deportation and detention system that is tearing families apart,” Montrevil says. Montrevil entered the U.S. from Haiti in 1986 as a legal permanent resident.
Meanwhile prominent clergy and elected leaders are calling on the feds to return Montrevil to his wife Janay, an African-American school teacher, and his four U.S.-born children.
“Jean represents all that is right about our nation and wrong with the deportation system,” says Rev. Bob Coleman of the historic Riverside Church. “He made a mistake. He paid his time. He represents a restored life. Who benefits by stripping him of his legal status?” Rev. Coleman is a leader of New York’s New Sanctuary Movement, a faith-based coalition for immigration reform that Montrevil himself co-founded in 2007.
Read the rest of this entry »Disturbing picture of secret detention centers
In an article that could have been written by Franz Kafka, The Nation reports on “America’s Secret ICE Castles,” a system of detention centers throughout the country.
“If you don’t have enough evidence to charge someone criminally but you think he’s illegal, we can make him disappear.” Those chilling words were spoken by James Pendergraph, then executive director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Office of State and Local Coordination, at a conference of police and sheriffs in August 2008.
The challenge of being unable to find people in detention centers … is worsened when one does not even know where to look. The absence of a real-time database tracking people in ICE custody means ICE has created a network of secret jails. Subfield offices enter the time and date of custody after the fact, a situation ripe for errors, … as well as cover-ups.
It’s also not surprising that if you’re putting people in a warehouse, the occupants become inventory. Inventory does not need showers, beds, drinking water, soap, toothbrushes, sanitary napkins, mail, attorneys or legal information, and can withstand the constant blast of cold air. The US residents held in B-18, as many as 100 on any given day, were treated likewise. B-18, it turned out, was not a transfer area from point A to point B but rather an irrationally revolving stockroom that would shuttle the same people briefly to the local jails, sometimes from 1 to 5 am, and then bring them back, shackled to one another, stooped and crouching in overpacked vans. These transfers made it impossible for anyone to know their location, as there would be no notice to attorneys or relatives when people moved. At times the B-18 occupants were left overnight, the frigid onslaught of forced air and lack of mattresses or bedding defeating sleep. The hours of sitting in packed cells on benches or the concrete floor meant further physical and mental duress.
Alla Suvorova, 26, a Mission Hills, California, resident for almost six years, ended up in B-18 after she was snared in an ICE raid targeting others at a Sherman Oaks apartment building. For her, the worst part was not the dirt, the bugs flying everywhere or the clogged, stinking toilet in their common cell but the panic when ICE agents laughed at her requests to understand how long she would be held. “No one could visit; they couldn’t find me. I was thinking these people are going to put me and the other people in a grinder and make sausages and sell them in the local market.”
Read the full article here.
Displaced Colombians seek shelter at unconventional sites
(UNITED NATIONS) – As the number of people driven from their homes to escape violence across Colombia topped three million in 2009, the United Nations refugee agency said today that more and more of the forcibly displaced are seeking safety on scraps of land that no one else wants.
A stretch of beach on the outskirts of Cartagena is one such site, where some 118 families have created a settlement accommodating a new family every week, noted the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
When these families arrived, the Villa Gloria district on the Caribbean coast had no electricity or other municipal services because city authorities said it was prone to flooding and land ownership was unclear.
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