The daily targeting of undocumented immigrants has not gone without resistance from our communities locally, regionally, and nationally. We have worked on individual deportation cases, shutdown Immigration and Custom Enforcements (ICE) detention centers, taken direct action on Congressional offices, and marched on Washington to stop the brutality of state control over our lives and the lives of our families. We’ve show President Obama and other elected officials that we will not stand for inaction on their parts.
President Obama and Democrats have run on progressive tickets promising our people a change in Washington, but we are sorely disappointed that once again our immigrant communities have become pawns in a political waiting game in the name of the upcoming November elections. The President’s recent announcement, created by pressure from the Democratic Party, to further delay immediate relief for immigrant families (including thousands of LGBTQ undocumented people) from policing, imprisonment, and deportation will only continue to mobilize white nationalist resentment and ensure that our region and our states remain hostile to immigrant communities and communities of color.
The White House’s political antics ignore what the uprising in Ferguson has affirmed these past few weeks; there is a deep white supremacist culture embedded in both local policing and national law enforcement agencies like ICE. We know all too well that this culture leads to biased policing and enforcement of communities of color, including LGBTQ people.
Our communities will continue to unite to bring the White House our demands to defend our people and to advocate for ourselves. We commend Tefere Gebre, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President, and the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda (NHLA) for their decision to boycott meetings with President Obama until he meets directly with undocumented people and urge other advocates to follow this leadership. We know those of us that are directly impacted are best positioned to speak for the relief we need from the issues that affect our communities.
As Pablo Alvarado of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) said, we will not be deterred by a, “politics of fear.” We remain committed to our desire for liberation and will lead our continued fight in the name of the transformation of a South and a country that embraces immigrants, people of color, and LGBTQ people in the name of BeLoved community.