"Our visions begin with our desires." Audre Lorde...

In 2004, my parents and my two little siblings were detained in California. I was left behind, here in Colorado. I remembered that it was summer time, hot like today. I recalled my mother's sad, muffled, yet thinly hopeful voice on the telephone. Our conversations were clipped by tears and sobs. I recalled this very sharp, eery sensation in my stomach every time I got the phone call. Every time I begun hearing her voice. Only her voice.

All the missing parts, combined with the uncertainty were the most painful.

I thought of my mom, my little brother and my little sister not knowing where exactly my dad was. They were separated from the beginning. I never heard from my dad during that time, because he used his phone card only to call the attorney. My mom tried to assuage me by saying that he was in a nice facility where he could go out to the yard, read magazines and watched TV.

On the contrary, my mom and my siblings were in the shitty center in LA, where during day they only eat the same cafeteria hamburgers, where they had to sit inside a communal jail cell for ten hours to watch the corner TV and to watch other detainees coming and going. They were not even allowed to get out to the yard. If there was one. She tried to reassure me that at night they get to sleep in a comfy room at motel six, where they had nicer beds than they had at home, where they had cable TV and the freedom to choose the TV channel, all while being supervised inside their room by two rotating armed guards.

During one of the phone calls, I told her how i missed her cooking so much and how i was tired of the ramen noodles and eggs for dinner each night. Ironically that was what they'd been having for dinner also. She told me how frustrating it was not knowing how to get a hold of my dad. But then she said she was lucky that she at least had my little siblings to cuddle with, whereas my dad had no one. I asked how my brother and sister were doing, and she answered me with this respond that was soon to be my crystallizing image for the entire experience. She said that they were playing cards with the armed guards. A game of go-fish, she said.

I was struck by the absurdity of this image. Two kids, age 10 and 13, sitting around a small table playing card games with the guards who were in charge of detaining them. I don't know if they set bets before hand, and my little siblings happened to place a wager for their release. Surprisingly, they won. Well, they were lucky. They were detained for two months, then...released.

But our luck took us only so far. As soon as my parents were released, they had to work overtime. Yet they had their wages garnished because they were in debt to the their employers for bailing them out and for paying the attorney fees. Then the economic crisis cut down their work hours so much they could no longer afford the mortgage payment. We soon lost our house.

But still, we were the few lucky ones. What about the unlucky ones?

What about those who are completely alone? who came here without anybody, knowing nobody, whose bodies were only valued by low wages and abused by hard labor, who are now being systematically lined up in front of aloof bureaucrats and waiting to be so easily tossed back, tossed away?

What about the parents who didn't get to see their children when they were captured, let alone cuddled with them? those who only heard their children's tears as their last frozen memories?

What about lovers who only got to see each other through glass walls? Only hearing each other's distorted voices, and see the lips that can't be kissed, the hairs that can't be felt. Those who could only smell the emptiness of cold air that robbed them from a loved one's familiar scents, those whose most sensible goodbyes are forced by unjust laws, set within tough walls and lit by harsh florescent lights...

What about the trans lovers and the same gender lovin' lovers, who not only were told that they were in a wrong country, that they were on the wrong side of the border, speaking the wrong language, eating the wrong the foods, but also, were told that they were loving the wrong bodies, loving the wrong sex?

I guess it is unlucky to be gay in such a homophobic world
it is unlucky to be a migrant in a xenophobic world
it is unlucky to be black, or brown, in a white man's world
just as it is unlucky to be poor in a rich man's world

But who deals these unlucky cards we get? Who sets the rules of the game? If we're losing, then who's winning? who is collecting our bets?

Our bodies should not be bargaining chips to be wagered against, neither should be our sweat, nor our loves...

However many unfortunate losses we've had...those we must keep near. Our deferred dreams, our unfair debts, our wasted sweats, our abused and tired legs, our lost embrace, our abrupt partings... those we must collect in a tank until the pressures of life squeeze them so hard that oil comes out, or rather something like volatile desires.

Breathing While Undocumented

By LINDA GREENHOUSE
I’m glad I’ve already seen the Grand Canyon.
Because I’m not going back to Arizona as long as it remains a police state, which is what the appalling anti-immigrant bill that Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law last week has turned it into.
What would Arizona’s revered libertarian icon, Barry Goldwater, say about a law that requires the police to demand proof of legal residency from any person with whom they have made “any lawful contact” and about whom they have “reasonable suspicion” that “the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States?” Wasn’t the system of internal passports one of the most distasteful features of life in the Soviet Union and apartheid-era South Africa?
And in case the phrase “lawful contact” makes it appear as if the police are authorized to act only if they observe an undocumented-looking person actually committing a crime, another section strips the statute of even that fig leaf of reassurance. “A person is guilty of trespassing,” the law provides, by being “present on any public or private land in this state” while lacking authorization to be in the United States — a new crime of breathing while undocumented. The intent, according to the State Legislature, is “attrition through enforcement.”
Representative Raúl M. Grijalva, a Democrat from Tucson, has already called on the nation’s business community to protest the law by withholding its convention business. Such boycotts can be effective, as demonstrated in the late-1980s when the loss not only of convention business but of — horrors! — the Super Bowl prompted Arizona voters to reinstate a Martin Luther King holiday in the state.
But a boycott is a blunt instrument that can hurt innocent business owners and their employees. So I will stick to my own personal protest without presuming to urge anyone else to follow my example.
Rather, I’ll offer a reflection on how, a generation ago, another of the country’s periodic anti-immigrant spasms was handled by the Supreme Court. In 1975, Texas passed a law to deprive undocumented immigrant children of a free public education. Many thousands of children — a good number of whom were on the road to eventual citizenship under immigration laws that were notably less harsh back then — faced being thrown out of school and deprived of a future.
The law was challenged in federal court, with the Carter administration supporting the plaintiffs. By the time the case, Plyler v. Doe, reached the Supreme Court, Ronald Reagan was president, and there was a major debate within his administration over whether to change sides. Rex E. Lee, the admirable solicitor general, refused to do so.
In June 1982, by a vote of 5 to 4, the Supreme Court struck down the Texas law. Justice William J. Brennan Jr. wrote for the majority that the constitutional guarantee of equal protection prohibited the state from imposing “a lifetime hardship on a discrete class of children not accountable for their disabling status.” Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr., a Nixon appointee and the swing justice of his day, provided the fifth vote. The law “threatens the creation of an underclass of future citizens and residents,” he wrote.
I have no doubt that but for that ruling, public school systems all over the country would be checking papers and tossing away their undocumented students like so much playground litter. Blocked from that approach, local governments now try others. The city of Hazleton, Pa., passed a law that made it a crime for a landlord to rent an apartment to an undocumented immigrant. A federal district judge struck down the law on the ground that immigration is the business of the federal government, not of Hazleton, Pa.
Indeed, federal pre-emption would appear to be the most promising route for attacking the Arizona law. Supreme Court precedents make clear that immigration is a federal matter and that the Constitution does not authorize the states to conduct their own foreign policies.
My confidence about the law’s fate in the court’s hands is not boundless, however. In 1982, hours after the court decided the Texas case, a young assistant to Attorney General William French Smith analyzed the decision and complained in a memo: “This is a case in which our supposed litigation program to encourage judicial restraint did not get off the ground, and should have.” That memo’s author was John G. Roberts Jr.
So what to do in the meantime? Here’s a modest proposal. Everyone remembers the wartime Danish king who drove through Copenhagen wearing a Star of David in support of his Jewish subjects. It’s an apocryphal story, actually, but an inspiring one. Let the good people of Arizona — and anyone passing through — walk the streets of Tucson and Phoenix wearing buttons that say: I Could Be Illegal.

Yesterday's Press Conf & Rally Report Back! & ACTION ALERT: VETO SB 1070!

The American Friends Service Committee, Faith and Immigrant Rights Groups to Decry Arizona Bill and Draconian ICE Action
Say to President Obama Stop Separating Our Families
The Arizona state legislature recently passed Senate Bill 1070 which would institutionalize racial profiling and the division of families. Thursday, around 1,000 law enforcement agents aggressively descended upon Arizona communities from Phoenix to Tucson, creating extreme panic. On the heels of a yet to be signed SB 1070, this raid further terrorized community members and left them wondering if they are now living in a police state. ICE claimed to be targeting a smuggling ring. While only 47 people were arrested, the impacts were felt throughout Tucson, Phoenix, Nogales as ICE vehicles and masked agents roamed the streets.
As part of a national response to these brutal actions, the American Friends Service Committee held a press conference in Denver today at El Centro Humanitario para Los Trabajadores in solidarity with the communities of Arizona resisting fear and repression.
Dr. Phil Campbell from the Iliff School of Theology, led the crowd in prayer to open the conference, while more than 60 people listened with head bowed.
People traveled from Boulder, Longmont and Greeley to the rally. “This bill is so hateful. I can’t believe I live in a time where people are asked for their papers based on what they look like, like Nazi Germany. I had to come out and show my support for Arizona communities and to stand against this kind of bill” stated Bob Norris.
Jennifer Piper, from the American Friends Service Committee spoke next, “The actions by the Arizona senate and ICE this past week do not recognize the contributions of immigrants and divide our communities. The truth is that immigrants are intricately part of our community, anything you do to them; you do to all of us. We reject this bill. We reject the raids and heightened enforcement of the Obama administration, which deported more people last year than the Bush administration did. We call on President Obama to stop the raids and put energy into passing just and humane immigration reform this year”.
Jenny, a mom and leader with Rights for All People, spoke about how dangerous legislation like this is saying “This legislation forces law enforcement to spend more time acting as ICE agents and spend less time on community safety. Victims and witnesses of crime will be even more afraid to call the police for help.” Jenny called for people to contact Arizona Governor Brewer and ask her to veto the bill.
“Already, pastors across Arizona are receiving panicked and fearful calls from their communities asking what will happen to them now” said Jeff Johnsen of Mile High Ministries “This type of legislation divides our community and puts families under greater threat. I believe in the rule of law, but I also believe as Christians we have to advocate for just laws.”
Alec, of Centro Humanitario added that workers rights are impacted by raids and enforcement resulting in bad actor employers being able to take further advantage of their employees. “We need immigration reform, not the enforcement of broken laws. I challenge the community to do more than just come to this press conference, more than just march on May 1st, get involved with a group and make your voice heard”, said Alec.
In addition to the humanitarian and community safety reasons for opposing the bill, many law enforcement groups in Arizona opposed the bill based on cost. According to the Arizona newspaper Phoenix New Times, Yuma County Sheriff Ralph Ogden said “that his county would have to pick up the tab for training costs related to the legislation, and the cost of holding more inmates on state charges in his facilities. "We don't have enough people to be doing what we're supposed to be doing anyway. But you have to prioritize. And if you start spending less time on property crimes and personal crimes, you don't want to do that." Secretary Napolitano, in response to letters from law enforcement opposing SB1070, came out against the bill in March saying it took away law enforcement’s ability to prioritize.
Adding insult to injury, ICE conducted massive visible raids on Thursday in Tucson and Phoenix in “Operation Plain Sight”. More than 1,000 heavily armed law enforcement officials descended into local communities, many of them wearing masks. In a press release from an Arizona, Kat Rodriguez of Derechos Humanos described ICE's chaos, "There was a massive show of force, with helicopters, dozens of agents, police vehicles, and weapons, assaulting our community in a fashion never seen before." She continued, "This raid marks a new low in the Obama Administration's lack of accountability".
Reverend Woodliff-Stanley, board member of the Interfaith Alliance of Colorado closed asking “Who is important in our community?” The crowd answered “Everyone!” Rev. Woodliff-Stanley ended by saying “The timing and scope of these raids almost seem designed to maximize fear in the community. We are all one community, one human family, and we all deserve respect and to have our inherent dignity recognized”.
For Immediate Release: Monday, April 19, 2010
Contact: Jennifer Piper, jpiper@afsc.org , 720-301-1858 or Jordan Garcia, jgarcia@afsc.org 303.919.8798

At Coloradans For Immigrant Rights, we KNOW that the immigrant communities of Arizona are often a testing ground for anti immigrant legislation that will then permeate the rest of the nation. As neighbors to Arizona, let’s stand in solidarity with communities resisting repression!
Sabemos que las comunidades inmigrantes de Arizona muchas veces son usadas como lugar de prueba para legislación anti-inmigrante que después inponen por el resto del país. Siendo vecino de Arizona, penémonos en solidaridad con las comunidades resistiendo represión.
Para leer esta mensaje en español, clic aquí
We Are All Arizona/Todas y Todos Somos Arizona
Stop the Criminalization of Immigrants, End Racial Profiling!
Demand that Governor Brewer Veto SB 1070
This week, Arizona could make history and protect human rights by VETOING one of the worst anti-immigrant and racially targeted laws our nation has seen in decades.
SB 1070 was passed by the Arizona state legislature and awaits the signature of Governor Jan Brewer.
Raise your voice now for justice & equality: We are all Arizona
Click here to read and sign the petition to tell Governor Brewer to VETO SB 1070.
In no small coincidence, on Thursday, April 15,the Department of Homeland Security carried out multiple massive raids in Arizona, terrorizing hundreds of workers, families, and children. Over 800 ICE agents were joined by U.S. Marshals and local law enforcement, causing fear and panic across several Arizona communities while the state legislature passed SB 1070, which permanently criminalizes the immigrant community.
With one click, help our sister communities in Arizona to stop DHS attacks on our rights and the new Arizona law. Click here to tell Gov. Brewer to veto SB 1070, the anti-immigrant racial profiling law.
If signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer, SB 1070 would:
• Criminalize all undocumented immigrants as "trespassers" in the state of Arizona. SB 1070 would subject all undocumented workers and their families to arrest and conviction for misdemeanors, and in some cases felony charges for the new crime of "trespass" (reminiscent of HR 4437, the 2005 'Sensenbrenner bill').
• Legalize unchecked racial profiling by police of anyone they "suspect" is undocumented.
• Give police the authority to enforce federal immigration law and arrest people who cannot produce identification proving their legal residency in the U.S.
• Give police the power to investigate and entrap employers for hiring undocumented workers.
• Make seeking work illegal for day laborers and force all individuals, regardless of immigration status or citizenship, to carry identification papers or be subjected to detention and even deportation. Public agencies and service providers would have authority to demand identification documents from any person.
We are ALL Arizona
The repercussions of such a law will be devastating for immigrants and all communities of color in Arizona. Moreover, SB 1070 will have dangerous consequences, setting a national precedent for states and federal law, permanently criminalizing immigrants.
The DHS raid and SB 1070 law in Arizona are a turning point in our fight for socially just immigration reforms. The "immigration blueprint" announced by Senators Schumer and Graham last month is a proposal that allows such criminalization of immigrants. It promises to "fill gaps in apprehension capabilities" that will likely lead to the use of local police nationally to terrorize immigrant communities.
The VETO of SB 1070 will send a historic signal to Congress, the Obama Administration and the country that the further criminalization of immigrant workers, families and communities will not solve the problem.
Tell Gov. Brewer to VETO SB 1070 and raise your voice for socially just immigration reforms that uplift human rights and dignity.
Thanks to folks at presente.org for their support of the petition process.
________________________________________
National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights

Human Rights and Immigration Reform- AFSC Denver Post Guest Commentary

By Jennifer Piper, Jordan T. Garcia and Gabriela Flora

Reforming our obsolete immigration system is a human rights issue that can no longer wait. Our nation needs a clear and workable path toward legal residency for the millions of undocumented workers and families living in this country.

Some proposals, such as the immigration-reform blueprint that Senators Chuck Schumer and Lindsey Graham are spearheading, will only create the needed path after creating a more militarized southern border. Border communities along the U.S.-Mexico border have for generations demanded accountability and respect for their quality of life, not more of the same failed policies.

Adding more patrols, or high-tech surveillance systems, to "secure the borders" does not make us more secure. The tragic deaths of at least 6,000 migrants attempting to cross the U.S. - Mexico border since the mid 1990s are a stark reminder that border control policies have only perpetuated suffering. Migrants are 17 times more likely to die today while crossing the border than they were in 1998.

But, we hear from lawmakers that trumpeting border security is necessary to make immigration reform possible. Then where is the clear proof that the multimillion-dollar wall along the U.S. - Mexico border has curbed migration? Economists say the recession of the past two years has had more of an impact.

Stepping up ineffective border patrols, filling more detention jails like the one in Aurora, and more wholesale deportations would only aggravate the climate of fear and uncertainty under which millions of families live. In fact, the Obama administration deported more undocumented migrants in its first year in office than in George W. Bush's last year in the White House, based on the Department of Homeland Security's own reports.

That is why eighty people from Colorado are traveling via bus, van and plane to Washington D.C. and why tens of thousands of immigrant rights supporters are preparing to converge on the streets of Denver, Washington D.C. and across the country, this weekend to call for just and humane immigration reform, not policies that would expand the current ineffective, overzealous enforcement system.

They and millions of others are calling for an end to policies that split families apart and the beginnings of policies that provide safe and swift paths to legalization. We believe the seven core principles the American Friends Service Committee have proposed in A New Path Toward Humane Immigration Policy will help achieve that goal quickly, fairly and humanely.

These principles are: create justice with humane economic policies, protect the labor rights of all workers, develop a clear path to permanent residence, respect the civil and human rights of immigrants, demilitarize the U.S.-Mexico border, make family reunification a top priority, and ensure that immigrants and refugees have access to services.

As a nation, we should reject appeals to tie the future of millions of families to a broken, unjust system of enforcement. Instead we should respect the human rights and dignity of immigrants through humane and fair immigration policies.

Jennifer Piper, Jordan T. Garcia and Gabriela Flora are with the Colorado office of the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker peace and justice organization. To access A New Path Toward Humane Immigration Policy go to http://www.afsc.org/newpath.

Read more: http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_14764341#ixzz0jbSLX69V

Photos from 800 person Denver rally for immigration reform on March 21 (by Gabriela Flora)

Monseñor Romero’s Legacy Lives On

By: Gabriela Flora, AFSC
Today Salvadorans and people across the world will commemorate the life and legacy of Monseñor Romero on the 30th anniversary of his assassination as we did last night during a snow storm here in Denver.

Many priests (in addition to thousands of civilians) were murdered in El Salvador by the military government funded and trained by the United States. Romero stands out because he was part of the oligarchy, entrenched in the power of the church and state. He was chosen as archbishop of San Salvador in 1977 because it was believed that he would tout the conservative government line, rein in the priests supportive of the working class, and turn a blind eye to the violence in the name of “fighting communism”. Romero’s career was taking off in the conservative hierarchy of the church. But the injustice of what he witnessed led him to risk it all to the point of death to speak out against inequality, exploitation, injustice and extreme violence.

I had the privilege this past January to spend eleven days in El Salvador with students from the Romero House at Regis University. The trip was a pilgrimage exploring the life and legacy of Archbishop Romero, the reality of military rule and support of the U.S. in the devastation and the current reality of an FMLN president and hope for a better future. Woven into all of this was the underlying current of immigration.

Beginning with a visit to Divina Providencia, Archbishop Romero’s home and church where he was assassinated to the site of his tomb, Romero’s spirit accompanied us as we met the Salvadoran people and learned of their experiences in the war and have they have coped since the peace accords.

Monseñor Romero’s spirit is a transformative one. The final act that led Archbishop Romero to no longer accept the justification and rhetoric of the government and military was the assassination of his dear friend Father Rutilio Grande, a priest who lived amongst the people and supported them in their daily struggles against violence, both economic and physical (as the two were intimately tied together). After Father Grande’s murder, Romero refused to turn a blind eyeto the violent realities in Salvadoran poor communities; he refused to officiate at any government sanctioned event and became a spokesperson of what the people were witnessing in their communities. On his weekly radio program he described the atrocities experienced by his parishioners and name the murderers; a powerful act in a country where all media was controlled by the economic elite.

Romero’s transformation is central to his legacy. He was a man whose eyes were opened and vowed to give voice to what he saw. The elite tried to dismiss his voice, but the people strengthened their power through his radio programs and outreach to communities and he supported their organizing through communidades de base. While trained and inducted into a very hierarchical perspective on the church, he was transformed by the Salvadoran people and their struggle and came to believe in the walking church- that God rests not in a vested few, but rather in the actions, beliefs and struggles of the common people, that God’s work is not in preparing for heaven, but in ending poverty and working for justice in this life.

During my time in El Salvador I saw Romero’s compassion and grace in the eyes of Jonathan, Rogelio and Angélica among many others. Jonathan went to the mountains at the age of 12 to join the guerillas after his brother was disappeared. He shared how, after the peace accords he worked with all those who disarmed (FMLN and military) to obtain training and access to services. When I asked him if it was hard to work with the former rank and file military men, he said it was at first, but then he realized they were poor like him and in the same situation (although the former military were given prime land and easier access to credit than former FMLN).
Rogelio was nine years old when his whole community was massacre. We sat at the site of his former community and Rogelio shared the horrors he experienced and saw when the Atalcatl brigade trained at the School of the Americas killed 150 people including all his immediate family in front of his eyes. His humble expression of the atrocities was beyond words. Our time at the site ended by holding hands in a circle and praying for peace.

Angelica, our host at the home we stayed at in Papaturro told of why she and her community had to flee to refugee camps in Honduras. She told of the fear they lived in… how a military soldier chased her when she was eight months pregnant, how that same soldier later came to her house and demanded to know if she was feeding the guerrillas. “Yes, I feed the guerrillas” she responded. Continuing she said, “and I feed the soldiers too, God said feed the hungry, cloth the naked, house the homeless, he did not say kill and slaughter your neighbor.”

Commemorating Romero’s assassination and more importantly his life, is not just to remember the terrible injustices in El Salvador and role the US played, but to carry Romero’s spirit with us as we work to change the current policies, beliefs and institutions that maintain countries like El Salvador at levels of inequality similar to pre-war numbers. Part of what draws me to AFSC, is that our work is based in an understanding that economic injustice is at the root of most violence in our world today and that peace is not the absence of war, but rather is rooted in economic justice and the full respect of all people’s human rights. I am proud to be part of an organization that carries on Romero’s spirit.

The Romero Theater Troupe performing scenes from Archbishop Romero's life at the Denver 30th Anniversary Commemoration of Oscar Romero's Life and Death in Denver on March 23. The event was sponsored by: American Friends Service Committee, Denver Catholic Worker, Denver Justice and Peace Committee, Loretto Community, Project Salvador, and Spirit of Christ Catholic Church.

Listen to an interview with Gabriela Flora and Jim Walsh (Gabriela's husband and founder of the Romero Troupe) on KGOAT radio this past Saturday Experiences in El Salvador Shed Light on the Root Causes of Immigration http://www.kygt.org/audio/Jerry/2010/Jerry%203-20-10.mp3
Listen to yesterday's KGNU interview on Romero's life, death and the current situation in El Salvador with Gabriela Flora, Jim Walsh, Arnie Carter (member of Romero Troupe and AFSC's Area Program Committee) and Christina Stimson (program manager for Project Salvador).