County council forwards request for information on local ICE policies to Monroe County’s sheriff

In the councilors, IJTF found a group that appeared mostly supportive of their view that the county sheriff should not be helping ICE to identify and apprehend people who are suspected of a possible civil infraction. That’s the category of legal violation to which immigration violations belong, Christie Popp, a local immigration attorney with IJTF, told the council.

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ICE out of MoCo

On January 25, 2017, President Trump’s Executive Order 13768 broadened “interior enforcement” priorities to target ALL undocumented immigrants for deportation regardless of their individual circumstances. In the three years since, this massive expansion has devastated immigrant families and communities around the US—including right here in Indiana’s Monroe County. MoCo Sheriff Brad Swain voluntarily collaborates with ICE (Immigration Customs and Enforcement) to detain our neighbors and friends. These detentions are unnecessary, unconstitutional, and immoral. We need to stop them NOW.

YOU Can Get ICE Out of MoCo:

  1. WRITE your County Commissioners and County Council Representatives. Use the sample letter and contact information below. NOW is the time.
  2. Broadcast #iceoutofmoco and #IceOutofMoCo on all your social media accounts. Spread the word NOW.
  3. Learn more by exploring the file listed below.

2019 The Year of the Farmers’ Market Controversy

This fall, the Purple Shirt Brigade handed out postcards at the Farmers’ Market for people to write about how white supremacy in the market makes them feel. The cards would be sent to Mayor John Hamilton. This card was signed by ‘Peter E Diezel.’ In April, the Chicago Sun-Times website reported an Indiana man identified as Peter Diezel was associated with Identity Evropa and posted tweets defending Adolf Hitler. | Courtesy photo

Looking back, the antiracist and antifascist activists who have worked to air this issue have been stunningly successful. Besides the City of Bloomington, other entities have held multiple community forums to wrestle with it. Countless exchanges among area residents have taken place online and offline, in the open and behind closed doors. Local media — Indiana Public Media, Indiana Daily Student, WFHB, The Bloomingtonian, B Square Beacon, The Herald-Times — have followed this upheaval. It has even appeared on the national radar, ranging from the progressive left (The Nation) to the extreme right (National Vanguard) to the middle-of-the-road (Newsweek) — including the front page of the New York Times, arguably the most influential mainstream U.S. newspaper.

Scattered across the conversations and coverage are the experiences of people of color. What would it mean to place their perspectives at the center of our reflection and think outward from there? To acknowledge them seriously and meaningfully? Might we come away with a fresh understanding of the stakes involved that could prove useful for moving the city past this deadlock?

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Shooting Is the Violence Latinos Have Been Dreading

The violence in El Paso is not about immigration policy. It is about promoting the hate, fear and division sown by President Trump. In the past three years, Mr. Trump has systematically sought to paint a hateful portrait of Hispanics. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” Mr. Trump said when he announced his presidential candidacy in 2015. “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” In 2016, he accused an Indiana-born judge presiding over cases against Trump University of being biased because of his Mexican heritage.

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Is Indiana A Racist State?

The KKK held a rally in Madison, Ind. in 2018. But most of the people who showed up were protestors. (WFIU/WTIU News)

Madison says it’s up to Hoosiers to take a stand and make a change.

“Individual Hoosiers in communities in Indiana have done just enough dumb, stupid, hateful things to spark the question again and again ‘Well is Indiana klan state?’ My answer to that is no, it’s not. But Indiana has flirted down to the 21st century with some of the culture, some of the ideas, some of the beliefs and values that so informed the Klan in the 1920s.”

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Sueños pausados

Aquel martes comenzó como cualquier otro.  María Chávez Juárez estaba sentada en su clase de criminología, Sandy Rivera estaba en astronomía y Kemberly Hernández estaba en el Campus Center de IUPUI. Muy pronto el celular de María, que estaba entre sus piernas, empezó a vibrar con cada mensaje que recibía.

Ella empezó a mirar los mensajes de Snapchat olvidándose de escuchar a su profesor. El Presidente de los Estados Unidos había enviado un mensaje de Twitter al mundo:

“Congreso, alístese a hacer su trabajo – DACA!”

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Trump Uses MS-13 To “Sell Draconian Overhauls Of Border Issues”

MS-13, for him, solves all kinds of rhetorical problems. So first of all, he wants to portray immigrants nationwide as being criminals. And that’s obviously empirically untrue. But also statistically, that’s wildly inaccurate. Crime in immigrant communities tends to be much lower. Immigrants tend to be much more law abiding than citizens.

It helps him shape the debate on DREAMers and recipients of DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which is kind of a big congressional issue now ever since Trump canceled the program in September of 2017. He often mentions the two in the same sentence as a way of trying to sell wholesale draconian overhauls of border security measures and interior enforcement measures. MS-13 is useful for him there.

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Heartland Democrats to Washington: You’re Killing Us

AUSTIN, Ind.—Steering his white Dodge Ram while wearing a tan knit cap, a drab green Carhartt coat and a smear of brown livestock feed on his cheek, Terry Goodin jounced over frozen-hard mud toward his 100 head of beef cattle. “Make sure they’re all four legs down and not four legs up, in this kind of weather,” he told me in his southern Indiana drawl. The temperature overnight had dipped toward zero. Now, midmorning, it stood at 16 degrees. On the rear of his old pickup truck was a “Farmers For Goodin” bumper sticker, and rattling around his head were thoughts of what he was going to say the following week in a starkly different setting—up in Indianapolis, at the regal limestone capitol building, in his introductory speech as the leader of his caucus in the state legislature.

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Letter from City Commission regarding current latino affairs

October 4, 2017

Members of the Bloomington Community,

For years the City of Bloomington Commission on Hispanic and Latino Affairs has served to identify and research the issues which impact the Hispanic/Latino populations in Bloomington, especially in the areas of health, education, public safety and cultural competency.

We support all Hispanics/Latinos including immigrants, refugees, and multi-generational U.S.-born folks who despite lifetimes in the U.S. are identified as Hispanic/Latino according to U.S. census.  While the commission is not affiliated or motivated by any political party, we cannot deny that our work and sentiment is affected by the national rhetoric which vilifies and, in some cases, criminalizes the very existence of people in our community.

The decision to end DACA destabilizes the lives and futures for hundreds of thousands of folks who have no other crime than having been born outside of the lines you and I know as the U.S. border.  The impact of the DACA repeal means splitting up families, interrupting communities and workplaces, and deporting adults and children to countries they have never really known.  And for those of us who stay, we lose relationships, and we lose our emotional and economic investments in believing in and professing an American dream for all.

We hope to serve as a catalyst to promote positive public and private solutions to multi-faceted issues confronting Hispanic/Latino neighbors ensuring to document the resulting effects of action and inaction on our community.  We unreservedly oppose the decision of the Trump Administration to end DACA especially without a defined and humane path forward for our neighbors, friends, and family.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has studied and proposed common sense immigration reform for years and published detailed analysis to dispel myths, which are used for political advantage.  Opinions and false conclusions have been related as truths regarding “illegals” so we compiled a shortlist of facts for clarity.

Undocumented folks:
1. Do not receive free government healthcare.  Undocumented folks do not qualify for Medicaid or the Healthy Indiana Plan.

2. Do not take jobs that would be filled by citizens.  There is no correlation between high unemployment and immigration.  Findings indicate undocumented folks become entrepreneurs – create jobs – at twice the rate as U.S.-born folks.

3. Do pay taxes.  Taxes paid by undocumented folks proportionately to U.S.-born folks include property, excise, and sales tax.  Also federal, state and local income taxes, Social Security and Medicare taxes are automatically deducted from paychecks just like everyone else.  In 2013, undocumented folks contributed $11.6 billion in state and local taxes.

4.  Are not eligible tax-funded benefit programs.  Data from the Social Security Administration shows that in 2010 undocumented folks paid $13 billion in payroll taxes to Social Security and Medicare, benefits that are only accessible to citizens.

Additional findings by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce include:

– Immigrants do not drive down wages of U.S.-born workers.

–  Immigrants have economically revitalized many communities.

–  Immigrants do not cause crime rates to rise and are less likely to commit crime than U.S.-born individuals.

–  Mass deportation of undocumented immigrants would severely damage the U.S. economy.

Facts and statistics aside, we must remember that DACA recipients are human beings and members of our community.  DACA recipients have lived in the U.S. most of their lives – this is home.   DACA recipients have families, jobs, and contributors to our community.  To drive them away will not just damage our community as a whole but, at its base, it is cruel and inhumane.

Sincerely,
City of Bloomington Commission on Hispanic and Latino Affairs

CHLA Letter to HT October 4 2017

Walmart’s C.E.O. Had Plenty to Say About Trump. So Did His Customers (in Bloomington, IN).

Since the violence in Charlottesville, chief executives across corporate America have had to weigh the risks of taking a stand against the administration. Mr. McMillon himself, while harshly rebuking the president, initially opted not to step down from the Strategic and Policy Forum before it disbanded — an example of the delicate balance that corporate leaders try to strike when dealing with Mr. Trump.

On Wednesday, we spoke with customers at Walmart stores in three communities — Las Vegas; Bloomington, Ind.; and Union Township, N.J.

This is what they had to say about Walmart chief executive’s decision to weigh into the political fray this week.