Whichever party has been in the white house, the past several decades of immigration policy has been devastating on undocumented residents, workers, students and families. Though less explicitly racist and xenophobic, the Obama Administration deported more undocumented immigrants than the Trump administration, reaching over 400,000 deportations and nearly 300,000 arrests per year over three of his four years in office. 

Though Obama’s administration started the wide-scale detention of immigrant families for as long as it took to complete their immigration cases and deport them, Trump made a point of separating families, leaving children alone without their parents in warehouses. 

The targets were different as well: “The demographic profile of those crossing the border has changed, too: People traveling in families, not single adults, accounted for the majority of those apprehended last year (56%). And most of those apprehended were from the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, which have struggled with violence and a lack of economic opportunities [of which the United States military and economic policies as well as transnational corporations were a major cause of]. This represents a notable break from the 2000s and early 2010s, when Mexicans accounted for the vast majority of those apprehended.” (Pew Research Center, March 2, 2020)

We are waiting to see if the Biden/Harris administration will follow Obama’s mass deportation and detention strategies or respond to the mass objection to Trump’s rhetoric, brutality and anti-immigrant policies and growing lack of support for ICE. This is what has changed the most since Obama’s immigration policies. 

It’s a reminder that we need to stay vigilant. The victory of getting Trump out of office is significant in stopping the most obvious bleeding but the work of building transformative power towards what we want remains urgent. 

This is what the Immigration Justice Committee, under the coordination of April Newman, our current Immigration Justice Coordinator, is doing with the filing of a legal complaint to demand the investigation and removal of racist San Francisco immigration judge Nicholas Ford. Infamous as a racially biased Chicago judge, the NLG-SFBA voiced our objection to his coming out of retirement to be placed as an immigration judge in SF. Read more below for details on the legal complaint and campaign. 

The work continues. 

Sara Kershnar, Executive Director

Goals: 

• Bring membership, staff and Board together to build relationship and consolidate the organization
• Provide updates on committees and programs
• Have discussions that we often don’t have time for in committees, staff, board or other meetings and discussions
• Build unity and have open debate across some of the political points of unity as they are translated into our work
• Shift culture in ways that promote new and more diverse leadership and membership
  Identify ways to evolve our communication and coordination across the organization

Seeking:

1. An attorney to consult with and write a memo to Santa Rita Jail on behalf of the Roots of Labor Birth Collective. RLBC is a doula collective that serves low-income clients; particularly clients who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color. RLBC has partnered with Bay Area clinics as well as the Alameda County Santa Rita Jail for around 5 years. After COVID-19 restrictions went into place, RLBC was informed that they could no longer see their clients because they are not an essential service. RLBC and the Santa Rita Jail Hotline would like to contact the jail to assert that the physical and emotional support offered by RLBC is an essential service, as other programs such as face-to-face drug counseling have resumed in a limited capacity at the jail. Please contact srjhotline@nlgsf.org.

2. An attorney to consult with the #FreeThemAll14. The #FreeThemAll14 is a group of immigration activists and attorneys who were arrested and incarcerated in Sacramento County Jail after a protest at Governor Newsom’s mansion. This week, all criminal charges were dropped against the group, who were incarcerated for 16 hours during which they were denied food and water. Now that they no longer have pending criminal charges, the #FreeThemAll14 are looking for attorneys who can assist organizers in filing a civil complaint. Please contact demonstrations@nlgsf.org.

For previous weekly updates, please check https://srjsolidarity.org/weekly-updates/. Santa Rita Jail Solidarity is a website and prisoner solidarity project which publishes testimonies by prisoners and helps to disseminate information that is reported to the National Lawyers Guild Santa Rita Hotline.

The population inside Santa Rita Jail is at its highest since COVID-19 restrictions and associated release policies went into place. Prisoners have expressed concern that the opportunity for social distancing has sharply decreased, and that their rights are being violated as County law enforcement seeks pursues charges that may circumvent the new “zero bail” schedule.

The NLG-SF Santa Rita Jail Hotline is seeking more hotline workers to participate in an orientation planned for early December. The Santa Rita Jail Hotline receives calls from prisoners with concerns ranging from COVID-19 to food quality, sanitation, and the jail’s culture of secrecy, which has led to abuse of the jail’s internal grievance system and few meaningful outlets for prisoners to express serious concerns.

In addition to answering calls, hotline workers may correspond with prisoners, advocate prisoners’ concerns to the jail, and collect testimonies about jail conditions.

If you are interested to attend the orientation, please fill out this volunteer form.

Please contact srjhotline@nlgsf.org with questions.

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 The content of hotline calls can suggest a very different reality than what is being presented to the public. If you are interested in becoming a hotline worker, please fill out this form.

Demonstrations in the Bay Area

On Thursday and Friday, November 12-13, Legal Observers traveled to Union Point Marina Park in Oakland, where residents of the Marina encampment were facing eviction after marina users and residents have put pressure on the city to clear the camp. On Monday, November 9, the City of Oakland tagged a number of resident's vehicles and cleared a corridor which would allow bulldozers and heavy equipment into the camp. Supporters formed a picket line at the encampment to resist eviction. On the morning of Friday, November 13, an abandoned and red-tagged building next to the encampment caught fire and burned to the ground. No one was injured but residents’ property was destroyed. There were no arrests.

On Saturday, November 14, the #FreeThemAll coalition gathered in Union Square to demand that president-Elect Joe Biden close immigration detention camps and free people from detention. Protesters believe that given Biden’s history in government, his victory will result in the continued criminalization of immigrants as well as increases in border militarization and surveillance. There were no incidents.

Also on Saturday, November 14, protesters marched through Downtown Walnut Creek beginning at 7pm to demand the abolishment of Walnut Creek PD. There were no arrests, but Walnut Creek PD has pledged to investigate the march and identify participants due to incidents which they attribute to protesters.

On Sunday, November 15, Advanced Legal Observers traveled to Dublin to observe at a Black Lives Matter sign garden that was installed in Dublin Civic Center, after local gun store owner Mike Grant has called on Oath Keepers, 3%, and NRA members to "take Dublin back" and show up to the sign garden with vests, helmets, and weapons. Mike Grant retracted his threat after public condemnation. The event was ultimately peaceful with no incidents.

On Monday, November 16, Rapid Response Legal Observers and the Demonstrations Hotline supported four actions in San Francisco and Oakland related to gentrification, dispossession, and eviction in the Bay Area. At 9am on Monday, protesters rallied against the closure of Shelter-In-Place hotels and distributed meals. At 5:30pm, protesters mobilized at the office of Game Changer, LLC – a shell corporation that is driving dispossession and capitalist development in West Oakland. Legal Observers also traveled to Wood Street in Oakland to observe eviction defense for the camp. Protesters formed a shield line to prevent the eviction. There were no incidents or arrests.

RESOURCES 

NEW EOIR MEMO ON ‘IMMIGRATION COURT HEARINGS CONDUCTED BY TELEPHONE AND VIDEO TELECONFERENCING’

EOIR released a memo (PM 21-03) cancelling and replacing OPPM 04-06 and memorializing EOIR policies regarding the use of the telephone and video teleconferencing to conduct hearings in proceedings before an immigration judge. The memo is downloadable here.

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NEW EOIR MEMO ON LODGING

On Nov. 6, EOIR issued a memo confirming that lodging of I-589s is no longer permitted at the immigration courts. AILA has the memo downloadable here.