Here’s what you need to know about the DOJ ruling on survivors of domestic violence and gang violence. 

On Monday, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that most people fleeing domestic violence or gang violence would not qualify for asylum in the United States. The decision will affect thousands of people who have escaped horrific situations in their home countries.

Changing Systems, Changing Ourselves – The Accompaniment Model: Philosophy and Best Practices

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Joe is a researcher and social media consultant for AFSC-AZ with nearly 20 years’ experience as an investigative journalist. Since attending Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, Joe has reported on issues related to mass incarceration and prison privatization for multiple outlets, including Village Voice Media and the Human Rights Defense Center. He has been honored for his work by the Association of Alternative NewsMedia, the Arizona Press Club, and the First Amendment Coalition of Arizona.

While advocating to end “stop and frisk” in New York City, I once asked my son, who was 16 at the time, “Have you ever been stopped by the police?” and he responded, “Yeah, but it’s no big deal, that’s what they do.” My son, like almost all young men of color, have come to accept as normal their broken, diminished status in our society.

More than 50 years ago, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. warned that “a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

Dr. King’s moral equation—spoken at a time when the U.S. was raining bombs and napalm on the people of Vietnam—still applies today. In December 2019, Congress approved more than $738 billion in military spending, and under the Trump administration, tensions with other countries have intensified, raising the potential for conflict.