Pangea attorney, Niloufar Khonsari, will be featured on a panel with long-time immigration attorney and refugee rights advocate, Nancy Hormachea, at the United Nations of the East Bay's Monthly Dinner Dinner Forum.
Please Join us! The event will take place on Thursday, February 28, 2013 at 6pm at Bacheeso's located on 2650 Telegraph, Ave in Berkeley, CA.
From ASPIRE:
Join us at 11am on Friday, January 25, 2013 at One Post Plaza, San Francisco, CA.
"We are urging ICE and our Congressional representatives to stop the deportation of all families. We are seeing unprecedented levels of immigration enforcement with over 1.7 million deportations.
Join Asian Students Promoting Immigrant Rights through Education (ASPIRE), the first and only Asian Pacific Islander (API) undocumented youth community organization in the nation, and community groups for an action for the “Our Families Matter” Campaign.
Meet at One Post Plaza for a rally at 11:00am. We will then march over to ICE."
Please refer to ASPIRE's Facebook invite for more information.
From: California Immigrant Policy Center
For immediate release: Dec. 21, 2012
Contact: Jon Rodney, 510-451-4882 ext. 304, Gabriela Villareal, 510-451-4882 ext. 303
Movement to pass TRUST Act spurs new guidelines from ICE, but few families will be kept together in practice
Today's announcement underscores need for Gov. Brown to sign TRUST Act to fill in significant gaps in policy
2012.12.21 - Today, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced new guidelines concerning the "Secure" Communities program and immigration detainer requests. In response to the announcement, Reshma Shamasunder, Executive Director of the California Immigrant Policy Center, issued the following statement:
Today's announcement by ICE regarding the S-comm program reaffirms what immigrant advocates have been calling for after several years of watching the program's disastrous results in communities throughout California: S-comm is a program that should be scrapped because it makes no one safer and tears families apart. It further validates the painful experiences of ice cream and tamale vendors, domestic violence survivors, and so many other community members who have unfairly faced deportation.
Hiding in the fine print of the announcement are significant loopholes that mean that in practice, the program will continue to undermine community confidence in law enforcement and will continue to result in unjust detentions of aspiring citizens (or citizens, for that matter.) The guidelines do not reflect our cherished value of due process - of the right to a day in court -and rely on a pre-conviction model that will still trap survivors of domestic violence and other crime victims and witnesses in deportations. The guidelines also continue to confuse criminal matters with immigration violations, meaning many people who aspire to become citizens but have previously been hurt by dysfunctional immigration policies will continue to be held for deportation. A mother seeking only to support her children, or a young person seeking to return to the only home they have ever known after an unjustified deportation, should not be subject to the S-Comm dragnet.
Today's announcement - and the grim figure of over 409,000 deportations nationally this year, a new record of shattered families and broken trust - underscores the need for California to take further action to uphold our values of due process and family unity. With swift passage of the TRUST Act (AB - Ammiano), a strong, statewide standard to limit burdensome ICE hold requests, we will truly rebuild community confidence in law enforcement, save local resources, and keep families together.
Jesus and his family embrace after his release.
From Pangea Legal Services
For immediate release: Dec 18, 2012
Contact: Ms. Niloufar Khonsari, nkhonsari[at]gmail.com (Attorney for Jesus Ruiz Diego); Ms. Kiran Savage-Sangwan Kiran[at]theniya.org
Breaking: DREAMer Jesus Ruiz freed from ICE detention after 90 days, but still facing deportation
What: Jesus to appear publicly for the first time at Wed. press conference, as supporters call for lasting relief for him and other DREAMersWhen: 11:00 AM, Wed., Dec 19
Where: Outside 1 Post Street, SF., (Office of Sen. Dianne Feinstein)
Who: Jesus Ruiz Diego, his attorney, family, and supporters
Why: After an outpouring of community support that included a rally in front of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's SF offices last month and a petition drive which garnered some 5,000 signatures, detained DREAMer and aspiring marine Jesus Ruiz Diego was released from ICE detention Dec. 18 after 90 days. However, despite this positive step, Ruiz Diego still faces deportation from the country he has called home since he was four years old.
For supporters, Jesus' case underscores the disconnect between current, unjust detention and deportation policies and the Obama Administration's stated intent and support for creating a reasonable immigration process that keeps families together, via measures like the Dream Act and immigration reform.
At the same time, Ruiz Diego's release shows that discretion - sorely underused by ICE - can indeed be granted in such cases. In the wake of Jesus' release, activists are urging the agency to release two other DREAMers who, like Jesus, spent the vast majority of their lives in the US, but were deported due to dysfunctional immigrant policies and then caught up again in the deportation dragnet. Those cases are Fredi, from Georgia, and Pablicio from Florida.
Supporters are holding the press conference in front of the Senator's office to symbolize their hope for increased leadership from other Senators across the country to protect Dreamers who have previously been unjustly deported from detention and deportation. Specifically, supporters call on Senators Reid and Durbin, leaders on the DREAM Act and immigration reform, to take a stand for these young people and bring them home to their families now.
Jesus embracing his nephew tonight at Church in San Jose after his release.
Background - about Jesús: Jesus came to the United States with his family at the age of four. He attended kindergarten, elementary, middle, and high school in San Jose, which he considers his hometown. As the first person in his family and in his neighborhood to graduate from high school, Jesus has served as a role model for his community.
After 9/11, Jesus began dreaming of joining the United States military. He graduated in 2004, with the hope of joining the Marines, but learned he was unable to pursue his dream due to his immigration status. While continuing to dream about joining the Marines one day, Jesus was accepted to college. But because he couldn’t afford it, he decided to find work to support his younger U.S.-citizen-brother and to be able to later go to college.
In 2008, immigration officers raided Jesus’ home in San Jose and deported him to Mexico. Jesus later learned that back in 1998, when he was an eleven-year old boy, his family had been ordered deported as the result of a withdrawn asylum and unsuccessful suspension of deportation claim. Like so many others trying to navigate the byzantine immigration system, Jesus’ family did not have adequate legal representation. After his deportation at the age of 22, Jesus was living in Mexico for the first time in his life for as long as he could remember.
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Companeros: please join Pangea in these initial steps to move forward Comprehensive Immigration Reform. Here is a support letter that everyone can sign to urge President Obama to stand and lead with us.
DACA Recipients: please view the recently released instructions on "Life After DACA: Obtaining a Social Security Number, Transferring Your Credit History, and Rescinding your ITIN." This resource provides a comprehensive guide with template letters, step-by-step instructions and links to required forms.
International Human Rights Day is next week, on December 10th. The theme of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights this year is the right to speak up and participate fully in civic society. This theme applies especially to political asylum seekers worldwide. As zealous advocates of asylum seekers in the United States, we owe our community a duty to understand international human rights law and utilize this tool as we stand with our friends who are seeking protection under U.S. asylum law. Pangea strongly encourages the application of international human rights documents to bolster domestic legal arguments to expand immigration protections in the U.S. Here is an excellent source to a range of international law instruments provided by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
