Dear MoveOn member,
Donald Trump is ramping up deportations and criminalizing immigrants. From his Muslim ban to deporting a DACA recipient who had the legal right to live, work, and study in the United States, Trump's actions are a relentless assault on our immigrant communities.
That's why MoveOn members are joining allies from Movimiento Cosecha and the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM) in May Day actions on May 1, 2017, including boycotts, strikes, marches, and other acts of solidarity with immigrant and refugee communities. These actions will take place across the country and will help drive the message that if Trump comes for any of us, he'll have to face all of us.
Brutal deportations are, sadly, not new, but Trump is escalating them to a frightening degree, promising to spend billions on a senseless border wall and militarized deportation force. Meanwhile, his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, is threatening cities that have created safe communities while resorting to xenophobic fearmongering and anti-immigrant rhetoric.
It's easy to focus only on the sheer numbers of people affected and Trump's specific policies. But if we do, we risk losing a connection to the human stories of those on the front lines of this horror—past and present.
Dena Takruri, a journalist with AJ+, recently did a three-part series focused on families who are directly affected by deportation policies.
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(If you're not on Facebook, click here to watch the video on YouTube.)
Adela's husband has been detained simply because of his immigration status. That's enough to keep him locked up as a prisoner, separate from his family, for two years. Eloy Detention Center, where Adela's husband is detained, is run by a for-profit company, as are many detention centers across the country. According to Dena, the same center has come under fire for the highest number of detainee deaths in the country.
When profits are put over people, it's no surprise that the deportation process is costing people their lives. Those who profit from this broken and abusive system rely on being able to operate without close scrutiny—which is why it is so critical that more Americans of all walks of life see videos like this, understand the cruelty of our deportation system, and stand together in solidarity on May Day and every day. Drawing attention to the conditions of centers like Eloy is one step toward creating the public outcry necessary to shut them down.
Click here to watch Adela's story and share it with your family and friends.
Stories like Adela's and her husband's allow us to see the brutal human costs of mass deportations and the criminalization of immigrants.
MoveOn members have, just in the past few months, supported immigrants rights organizations in the call for mayors and local elected officials to support "sanctuary cities" that do not collaborate with aggressive deportations. And just last week, MoveOn members joined allies in decrying the deportation of a young DACA recipient who had the legal right to live and work in the United States. But as this video reminds us, there is so much more work to do.
As we gear up for May Day actions across the nation, in solidarity with immigrant and refugee communities—all immigrant communities, including undocumented immigrants, Muslim immigrants, Latino immigrants, Black immigrants, and any who fall in multiple categories at once—we wanted to share this important story with you, your friends, and your family as we all prepare to take greater action to stop the deportation machine.
Watch and share Adela's story now.
Thanks for all you do.
—Iram, Jo, Michael, Mark, and the rest of the team
P.S. In Part 1 of her series, Dena also spoke to undocumented immigrants living in fear of deportation especially now. Click here to watch Part 1. And in Part 3, she spoke to immigrants who had been deported. Click here to watch Part 3.
P.P.S. Join the actions on Monday, May 1! Later this week, we'll be sharing information on specific actions happening all around the country. There will be opportunities to march and rally—and many MoveOn members will join allies in strikes and boycotts that day, as well as wearing yellow in solidarity with immigrant communities. We hope you can take action near you.
Want to support our work? The MoveOn community will work every moment, day by day and year by year, to resist Trump's agenda, contain the damage, defeat hate with love, and begin the process of swinging the nation's pendulum back toward sanity, decency, and the kind of future that we must never give up on. And to do it we need your ongoing support, now more than ever. Will you stand with us?
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Contributions to MoveOn.org Civic Action are not tax deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes. This email was sent to Eddie Alfaro on April 25th, 2017. To change your email address or update your contact info, click here. To remove yourself from this list, click here.
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