RECLAIMING TIME for Immigrant and Trans Rights

Here are new updates and recommended actions from PAGE (Progressive Action Global Exchange) followed by inspiring reading/watching/listening suggestions from our own Kathy Sherretts (STOP, LOOK, LISTEN) 
 
In solidarity,
Sage


PAGE Update

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the discriminatory actions and manipulative distractions of the Trump administration. This week, Rep. Maxine Waters gave us a new refrain for cutting through the nonsense, when she reclaimed her time from a stalling Trump Secretary. Let’s follow Rep. Maxine Waters’ example and direct our energy to the important fights.

This week, we focus on immigration, under threat by the RAISE Act (under which Trump wouldn’t qualify for a Green Card). We'll also take action against the prison industrial complex. Trans folks’ basic rights are under threat – let’s step up for them. For motivation, check out Mykal Kilgore’s gospel remix of Rep. Waters’ wisdom.

​PAGE Priority Actions

• Immigration Action 1: Oppose the RAISE Act. 
  • Background Info: Last week, Republican Senators Tom Cotton (AR) and David Perdue (GA) presented their anti-immigrant bill (S354), aka the RAISE ACT, with President Trump. This bill aims to cut legal immigration to the United States in half by implementing a merits-based system over family reunification, and eliminating some immigration programs. The Southern Poverty Law Center considers it part of the white nationalist agenda. Read more about the hateful, exclusionary bill here. 
  • The Bill Basics: Major changes to the current immigration system under the RAISE ACT include:
    • Elimination of family reunification visas for extended family members and adult family members.
    • Elimination of the “diversity visa program” (a.k.a. “green card lottery”), which awards 50,000 visas each year.
    • Decreasing the number of refugees offered permanent residency to 50,000 a year.
    • Elimination of federal benefits for new green card holders for five years after their arrival to the US.
  • Take Action:
    • Call and/or write your Senator to let them know you oppose the RAISE Act.  
    • Sign petitions against the act from the NILC Immigration Justice Fund and the Council on American Islamic Relations’ (CAIR). And if you have money to give, donate it to them.
• Immigration Action 2: Divest from the Immigration Detention System
  • Background Info: The United States is the world’s largest incarcerator of both prisoners and immigrants. Many of the prisons and immigrant detention centers in the U.S. are owned and operated by for-profit corporations, such as Geo Group and Core Civic. This immigration detention system operates under a Congressionally-mandated quota system requiring Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to keep detention centers filled – and profits high. Read more about  the history of U.S. immigration detention here.
  • The Current Crisis: Detained immigrants, both documented and undocumented, have suffered from human rights violations in private detention centers, including lack of access to medical care, lack of access to lawyers, no family contact, sexual abuse, physical and mental abuse, and solitary confinement. Since 2003, 265 people have died in custody of ICE and the Federal Bureau of Prisons.  
  • Trump’s Plan: The Trump administration is ramping up efforts to expand immigrant detention centers - and private prison companies are profiting. The Geo Group, who donated millions to Trump’s inaugural campaign, recently won a $110 million government contract to build a new detention center in Texas.
    • Take Action:
      • Stop financing immigrant detention!  Tell Wells Fargo and JPMorgan & Chase you want them to divest from private prisons/detention centers. If you bank with them, stop! And let them know why.
      • Support Detention Watch Network, a coalition of litigators, advocacy organizations, faith-based organizations, immigrants, and activists. Join the campaign to #defund hate!
      • Talk to your legislators and advocate! DWN provides a great toolkit you can use to organize your group around this issue.
        
        
• Bonus Action: Act FOR Trans Folks’ Basic Rights and Oppose US Militarism
  The Basics: The Internet went crazy when Trump tweeted out the ban on trans folks serving in the military. However, many trans advocates criticized calls for protest against Trump’s action, saying that protests should focus instead on the violence, harassment, and denial of basic rights, housing, job opportunities, and healthcare faced by trans folks across the country. Furthermore concentrating on issues of “tolerance” within the US military obscures the violence - physical, economic, sexual, and psychological - this force inflicts on people around the world
• Take Action
  • Read up on selective outrage and our failure to support trans communities, from No Justice No Pride, a collection of activists fighting for justice and equality within the LGBTQ movement.
  • Donate to the Trans Women of Color Collective.​​

​STOP, LOOK, LISTEN! by Kathy Sherretts

Greetings from Trumpsylvania. 

I have been watching the evening news every night with my mom, and I see why most folks have only the broadest sense of what is going on in Washington. Even without the influence of Fox News, folks sooner or later quit trying to follow or understand all the changing and contradictory stories. No amount of explanation and background material is going to make them care MORE about a topic that is already giving them a headache.
​
In the spirit of curing my own headache, I want to pass along my new favorite thing: The emails from Donald Trump Jr. to Rob Goldstone, who set up the controversial meeting between Trump Jr. and the Russians, could potentially be used as evidence of collusion with Russia — or they could be the lyrics of a soulful and mellow summer ballad. If It’s What You say, I Love It by Spirit Giants (3:41 min)

Video:
Late Night with Seth Meyers: The Check In: Trump and Religion (9:37 min)
A look at President Trump's spiritual advisor, and his evolving views on religion, faith and the separation of church and state.

Article:
Moyers&Co: Taking on the Private Prison Industry’s Corporate Backers by Sarah Jaffe
Activists are trying to combat both the accelerated tracking and detaining of immigrants and the use of for-profit prisons to hold them by targeting the big banks that prop up for-profit prison companies.

Article:
Washington Post: At EPA museum, history might be in for a change By Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis
The EPA museum features the agency’s work over 4½ decades, with exhibit topics such as regulating carbon dioxide emissions and the Paris climate accord. On a recent tour of the exhibit, an official said that climate displays are slated to be removed, and that a display on coal may be added.