On Thursday night, hundreds of thousands gathered across the country in living rooms, over laptops, and in front of televisions waiting for and anticipating executive action on immigration from President Obama. Together we held our breath, we held hands, and we hoped. We hoped that the President’s actions would match our organizing efforts and years of building collective power and taking risks to provide relief from detention and deportations for ourselves and for our communities.

For that, we were not disillusioned. Today, there are about 4.4 million more immigrants living in this country who can breathe a little easier at night knowing that deportation, at least temporarily, is not right around the corner. Today, the Secure Communities Program that has inflated the ability of local police to collaborate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain and deport over two million people has ended. Today, we can see the direct result of our work to force politicians to see us as human beings and not disposable political pawns.

We celebrate these victories as evidence that organizing our community has worked, but we also see clearly that this announcement is just the first step in our fight. President Obama made his announcement on Transgender Day of Remembrance…

Read more at:  http://southernersonnewground.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Celebrating-Our-Wins-Organizing-For-Our-Future.pdf