Immigrant Rights

AFSC’s Newark staff, scores of human rights advocates and immigrants walked three miles Thursday to protest a proposed immigrant detention center that would be one of the largest in the country.

The participants, many dressed in orange jumpsuits to symbolize the prison uniforms worn by immigrant detainees, marched from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement  (ICE) office in downtown Newark to Essex County Correctional Facility. The proposed new facility would add 2,700 new beds to an already crowded and inhumane immigration detention system.

Rev. Sandra Pontoh 2-17-11

Rev. Sandra Pontoh of the Maranatha Indonesian UCC Church in Madbury, NH waits to testify against HB 644 at New Hampshire's State House.

Before the NH House Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety even heard from all of the immigrants’ rights activists, law enforcement lobbyists, and business leaders who were waiting to testify against an anti-immigrant bill, committee members voted unanimously to recommend the proposal be killed.

The quick end to the hearing surprised a room full of immigrants’ rights activists, who had expected a difficult fight in a legislature that is led by ultra-conservative members.  

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  

           Contacts: Chia-Chia Wang, American Friends Service Committee, 646-509-3860

          John Skrodinsky,  Wind of The Spirit Immigration Resource Center, 973-896-0444

 New Jersey Residents To Walk in Support of Immigrant Rights, Oppose Massive Detention Centers in Essex County and Nationwide

activists wait to testify

Activists wait to testify against HCR 2

Immigrant rights activists gave members of a legislative committee plenty of reasons to defeat a resolution endorsing Arizona’s repressive immigration law at a State House hearing.

Shelbyville speaker

Mark O'Brien is a member of Coloradoans For Immigrant Rights (CFIR), a project of AFSC Colorado.

Originally posted on 10.19.2010 by 
Janine Vanderburg, JVA Consulting, visit JVA here!