SRLP (Sylvia Rivera Law Project)

Tag: criminalization

  • TODAY: SRLP Supports the LGBTQ #Not1More Deportation Action in DC

    SRLP Supports LGBTQ Day at the #not1more Deportation Hunger Strike on Tuesday, April 29th in Washington DC!

    April 29 #not1more meme

    If you’re in DC or close by join the for President Obama to stop the deportations and provide immediate administrative relief!

    More information from Southerners On New Ground (SONG):

    As many of you know the #not1more Deportation campaign’s White House Hunger Strike is entering its 5th week! SONG will be joining other LGBT leaders and groups coming OUT to support the call for #not1more on Tuesday, April 29th in Washington, D.C., on the White House’s front lawn.

    Live Nearby?

    Join us for a full LGBTQ Day in support of the hunger strike. Come learn what other folks are working on as part of the campaign, what’s on the horizon for future actions, how to plug in, and how we can coordinate future work that grows our communities’ power!

    Tuesday, April 29
    White House: Lafayette Park at 16th and H. Street NW [Lafayette Square 1600–1608 H St NW, Washington, DC 20006]

    10:30 AM // Welcome and Story Circle
    Join us for a morning kickoff! Learn more about the #not1more campaign, what different organizations are doing to support our LGBTQ immigrant and undocumented folks, and share cases that we will be highlighting and supporting during the day!

    11:30 AM // Art Making!
    Bring your art supplies and help us up our banner swag by making signs for the day!

    12:30 PM // Lunch

    1:30 PM // Press Conference and visit with Congressional Legislators

    4:30 PM // LGBTQ Hunger Strike Happy Hour!
    Join SONG, the AZ Dream Act Coalition, DRM Action and Immigration Equality for a closing of the day and connect with LGBTQ folks working on the #not1more campaign! This will be an opportunity to learn about ways to stay engaged and to support specific cases to get LGBTQ folks out of deportation and detention. Join us in growing the movement for a stop to ALL deportations and an immediate path to Administrative Relief!

    Live Hours Away From the White House?

    You can still help support the #not1more campaign and the LGBTQ Day at the Hunger Strike!

    1. Help us spread the word by sharing this post or sharing the Facebook event with people you know who might live in the area. https://www.facebook.com/events/436407159837743
    2. Download and share our newest meme on social media on Tuesday. Available for download at http://wp.me/a1CBWf-l5
    3. Follow us on social media today to share day of news, our message, memes, and hashtags using #queeringimmigration, #not1more, #ni1mas, #2million2many
    4. Join the Transgender Law Center, SONG, and a broad coalition of LGBTQ organizations to endorse the #not1more campaign http://transgenderlawcenter.org/archives/10129
    5. Become a SONG member to get connected to our ongoing work https://song.ourpowerbase.net/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=3
    6. Learn more about the #not1more campaign at http://notonemoredeportation.com

    For more information or questions, contact paulina@southernersonnewground.org or salem@southernersonnewground.org

    #not1more #ni1mas #2million2many #queeringimmigration

     

  • TODAY IN NYC: SRLP in Solidarity with Justice for Jane

    Join the rally to show your solidarity with a trans youth of color who is currently being held in solitary confinement in an adult prison in Connecticut. As Cece McDonald reminded us on Monday night, there’s no safe prison for trans people because prisons aren’t safe for anyone. But as long as our community members are incarcerated, we can work to ensure that they are safe, free from isolation and violence, and their voices are heard.

    Click here to learn more about the action in New York.

    When: Friday, April 25, 1 PM

    Where: ACS – 150 Williams Street, NYC

    Take the A, C, J, 2 or the 3 train downtown to the Fulton Street stop

    justice for jane

    Join Justice for Jane with the following demands: 

    1. Connecticut Department of Corrections: Do not violate “Jane Doe’s” protected status as a transgender woman by transferring her to a male facility.

    2. Connecticut Department of Children and Families: Remove “Jane Doe” immediately from the York Correctional Facility and place her in a safe, accepting, therapeutic environment. Immediately restore Jane’s access to therapy, educational materials and regular human interaction.

    3. Connecticut General Assembly: Repeal CT state statute 17A-12, which is the statute DCF used to unjustly imprison “Jane Doe”

    If you are not in New York or are not able to make it in person on Friday, you can still take action:

    1. Sign the Change.org petition in support of Jane’s transfer out of prison: http://t.co/jhhN27ESkf

    2. Contact Governor Dannel Malloy and tell him that this teen should be released from prison, returned to state custody, and placed in a juvenile facility with youth of her expressed, not assigned, gender. Email him at Governor.Malloy@CT.gov and call him at (800) 406-1527.

    3. Share on social media! Set your profile picture to our Justice for Jane image, take a photo with #justiceforjane written on a piece of paper, and post the petition on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with the hashtags #justiceforjane #girlslikeus 

    4. Write a letter to Jane to show your support. Jane needs to know that folks care about her and are standing behind her, and you can get a letter to Jane through her attorney, Aaron Romano (aaronromano@attorneyaaronromano.com).

    About the issue: A 16 year old transgender girl is currently being held in an adult prison even though she has not been convicted of any crime and has no criminal charges against her. A survivor of numerous instances of violence and abuse, Jane Doe is now being held in solitary confinement for 22-23 hours per day, without access to education or contact with peers her own age. Prison is no place for children, and it is no place for Jane. Join Justice for Jane in front of the Headquarters of the Department of Children and Families in Hartford to protest the dangerous, unfair, and inhumane placement of Jane Doe, and to demand that she be moved to a facility where her needs can better be met.

    Before being transferred to prison, Jane was in the custody of DCF and was living in a treatment home for traumatized youth. Although authorities claim that they petitioned for Jane’s transfer to prison because Jane assaulted a DCF staffer, no criminal charges are pending against her, and the DCF’s decision to place her straight into an adult prison sets a dangerous and unjust precedent. Jane has stated that, “I feel that DCF has failed to protect me from harm and I am now thrown into prison because they have refused to help me . . . I can feel myself growing more and more isolated, frustrated, and feeling alone in my current isolation.”

    Jane is currently being housed in the mental health unit of a prison for adult women, but the Department of Corrections has indicated that it may transfer Jane to a prison for men. If Jane stays where she is, she will continue to experience severe psychological and emotional harm as a result of her isolation. If she is transferred to the men’s facility, her life will be in even greater danger, and she will be put at an even higher risk for abuse and sexual assault.

    We have the power to show our solidarity with Jane and support her in determining her own safety and survival needs. The Commissioner of DCF, Joette Katz, can and should get Jane out of prison and put her back into DCF custody immediately, without going to court or further compromising Jane’s health and well-being. Please join us as we call on Commissioner Katz to take back Jane Doe and make good on DCF’s responsibility to look after the well-being of all people.

    BACKGROUND ON THE CASE:

    Read Jane Doe’s affidavit about her life, experiences with DCF, and current incarceration here (note: document contains graphic descriptions of violence and sexual abuse): https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1113035-4-14-14affidavit-redacted-reduced.html

    Read an overview of the case here:
    “How the Connecticut Department of Children & Families is Failing a Trans Girl of Color,” online at http://feministing.com/2014/04/14/how-the-connecticut-department-of-children-families-is-failing-a-trans-girl-of-color/.

    Additional articles and editorials:
    http://www.nhregister.com/opinion/20140416/editorial-connecticut-wrong-to-imprison-transgender-teen
    http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/op_ed/hc-op-staub-connecticut-juvenile-in-adult-prison-w-20140417,0,1959645.story
    http://ctmirror.org/transgender-ct-teen-writes-court-about-her-living-conditions-in-prison/#
    http://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/archives/entry/state_struggles_to_house_transgender_youth/
    http://broadrecognition.com/opinion/call-to-action-16-year-old-transgender-teenager-incarcerated-without-criminal-charges/
    http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/04/11/why-connecticut-sent-transgender-teen-adult-prison

    Read the notes from a discussion about the case with Commissioner Katz here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TOsKMHlU0wg5C9Fsy8nKC8yZxsIeAo2zip4W0zcnFpc/edit
    https://www.facebook.com/events/474055519389034/

    @Justice4JaneCT

    #JusticeforJane #girlslikeus #WeAreHuman

    To learn more about SRLP’s work to resist state violence and transphobia and to improve conditions for trans people in prison, visit http://srlp.org/prisoner-advisory-committee

    You can help ensure that our crucial work continues by making a donation at http://srlp.org/donate

  • TONIGHT: SRLP’s Reina Gossett and Dean Spade with Cece McDonald

    Check out this interview with SRLP’s Reina Gossett and join her tonight with Dean Spade and Cece McDonald!

    Read “NO ONE IS DISPOSABLE: Artist and activist Reina Gossett talks CeCe McDonald, trans liberation, and prison abolition” by Chris Lee at http://www.fvckthemedia.com/issue33/no-one-is

    Tonight

    “I Use My Love to Guide Me”: Surviving and Thriving in the Face of Impossible Situations
    A conversation with CeCe McDonald, Reina Gossett, and Dean Spade

    This free event is from 7:30-9:30 at the Barnard Center for Research on Women. 

    For more information: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cece-mcdonald-reina-gossett-and-dean-spade-tickets-11082426837

    Reina - It's Revolutionary to Connect with Love

  • SRLP Celebrates Philly Activists’ Work to Stop Deportations and End Criminalization

    Today in Philadelphia, Mayor Michael Nutter signed an executive order that limits cooperation between the Philadelphia Police Department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The law prevents Philadelphia police from being able to detain immigrants for transfer to federal facilities without a court warrant.

    Congratulations to the Philadelphia Family Unity Network (PFUN), a coalition of immigrants, activists, and allies, who successfully campaigned to pass this law. Mia-lia Kiernan, community organizer with 1Love Movement and PFUN member, says, “Our work is centered on the belief that families belong together, and that removing people from our communities through deportation threatens our survival as people. We also work under the belief that mandatory and institutionalized punishment is not our route, as a society, to addressing the root causes of violence in our communities. It is not our route to community-led and victim-centered healing. It is not our route to individual accountability and transformation. And it is not our route to re-building our traumatized communities.”

    The use of ICE detainers affects documented and undocumented immigrants. Some of the harshest consequences fall on people with legal status who are convicted of crimes and subsequently subjected to mandatory immigration detention and deportation without a hearing. By requiring ICE to obtain a warrant, the policy will effectively end the use of ICE holds in Philadelphia. Philadelphia police and prison staff have already been instructed to ignore ICE holds, and not to contact ICE regarding the release of an individual from the criminal system.

    After today’s win, PFUN stated, “Our coalition led this campaign by building strength and solidarity across all communities, and fought for the rights of all individuals to remain in the city they call home, including our members and our loved ones who are currently or formerly incarcerated.”

    Much like New York City’s laws limiting the power of NYPD to detain immigrants, the Philadelphia law is a small step in the larger work of undermining a system that criminalizes poor people, immigrants, people of color, and daily acts of survival.

    National surveillance measures, collaboration between local law enforcement and ICE, and programs like Secure Communities (S-Comm) have a drastic impact on transgender and gender nonconforming people. Our community members are commonly profiled by the police for expressing their gender identity or participating in criminalized economies in order to survive, then disappearing into ICE custody as they face removal proceedings. For transgender people, deportation more often than not results in additional violence, discrimination, and sometimes death.

    We hope that, with our continued mobilization, Philadelphia’s move puts pressure on New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to stop criminalization, stop all NYPD collaboration with ICE, and end Secure Communities.

    Tonight, you can join SRLP at a New Member Orientation and a Know Your Rights workshop on immigration. I hope you will join me to build our skills together.

    You can register for the event here.

    All SRLP events are FREE and ALL are welcome!

    WHEN: Thursday, April 17

    6 – 6:30 PM – New Member Orientation

    7 – 8:30 PM – Know Your Rights Workshop on Immigration

    WHERE: 147 West 24th Street, 5th Floor, NYC (elevator building)

    TRAINS: F, M, E, C, E, R, N, 1

    Snacks, Metrocards, and English/Spanish Interpreting Provided

    You can also support SRLP’s crucial work to resist criminal-immigration collaboration that targets our communities by making a donation at http://srlp.org/donate

     Stop Secure Communities City Hall 2013

  • Join SRLP on April 17 to Demand Liberation Not Deportation!

    On April 5, you marched and chanted with communities across the U.S. in a mass mobilization to end deportations. Our work to protect and build power with trans and gender nonconforming immigrants and our broader communities continues, and we need you to keep it going.

    On Thursday, April 17, we will have a New Member Orientation followed by a Know Your Rights workshop on immigration, which I’m facilitating! I hope you will join me to learn more about our issues, our rights, and how we can resist together.

    You can register for the orientation and workshop here.

    Secure Communities Protest at City Hall 2013

    The criminal-immigration system and its violent impacts on immigrant communities have multiplied since September 11, 2001, when State and Federal governments developed numerous new regulations, including the Secure Communities Program (S-Comm) and the use of immigration detainers. These regulations allow local law enforcement to collaborate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in carrying deportation proceedings. Two million immigrants have been deported under the Obama Administration, two thirds of whom were arrested for minor infractions, such as traffic violations, or had no criminal records at all.

    National surveillance measures and programs like Secure Communities (S-Comm) have a drastic impact on transgender and gender nonconforming people. Our community members are commonly profiled by the police for expressing their gender identity or participating in criminalized economies in order to survive, then disappearing into ICE custody as they face removal proceedings. For transgender people, deportation more often than not results in additional violence, discrimination, and sometimes death.

    Our work to resist these draconian laws is crucial, and I hope you will join me to build our skills together.

    You can register for the event here.

    All SRLP events are FREE and ALL are welcome!

    WHEN: Thursday, April 17
    6 – 6:30 PM – New Member Orientation
    7 – 8:30 PM – Know Your Rights Workshop on Immigration
    WHERE: 147 West 24th Street, 5th Floor, NYC (elevator building)
    TRAINS: F, M, E, C, E, R, N, 1

    Snacks, Metrocards, and English/Spanish Interpreting Provided

    You can also support SRLP’s crucial work to resist criminal-immigration collaboration that targets our communities by making a donation at http://srlp.org/donate

  • Join SRLP Staff and Collective Members This Weekend in LA and Western Mass!

    Join SRLP Staff and Collective Members This Weekend in LA and Western Mass!

    On Friday, April 11 from 2-3:15 PM, Alisha Williams, Director of the Prisoner Justice Project at SRLP, will be speaking at UCLA’s Williams Institute at their conference, LGBTQ Youth and the State. If you’re in LA, join Alisha to talk about the disproportionate policing and incarceration of LGBTQ youth. Alisha will also discuss some of the work we do at SRLP to improve conditions for trans and gender nonconforming people in prison and to resist criminalization and reduce the numbers of people targeted, arrested, and confined by the criminal punishment system.

    For more information, visit: http://srlp.org/events/today-in-la-alisha-williams-at-the-williams-institute-on-lgbtq-youth-and-the-state/ This conference is free and open to the public!

    On Saturday, April 12 from 1:15-2:45 PM, SRLP collective member Katherine Cross will speak on a panel on Transfeminism at the 28th annual Civil Liberties and Public Policy conference at Hampshire College. Katherine will be joined by this year with speakers Bamby Salcedo from the Translatina Coalition and Morgan Collado. The panel of trans women academics, activists, professionals, and organizers will explore feminism, gender justice, and the connections between trans liberation and reproductive rights. They will also discuss the tensions and conflicts that have prevented trans women from engaging fully with reproductive justice movements.

    For more information, visit: http://srlp.org/events/srlp-board-member-katherine-cross-at-the-clpp-conference/

    Katherine Cross at CLPP 2013

    For other SRLP events and ways to get involved, visit http://srlp.org/events

  • Dare To DREAM Bigger

     

    Pooja Gehi, Director of Immigrant Justice

    TDOA sign making

    As an attorney at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project I feel an urgent need to reflect upon President Obama’s promise of  Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) and what this means for our community.

    Most of our trans immigrants clients flee their homes in search of safety; most have little community and/or family support; very few have jobs in above ground economies; very few have healthcare that they need and even fewer have partners who want to marry them as a pathway to citizenship. Most of my clients have multiple criminal convictions because of the ways in which their identities are policed.  When they ask me when the President is going to give them “amnesty” I have to respond that he is not.

    In fact, I have to tell my clients that CIR – as laid out in President Obama’s plan – only minimally helps them if at all. Although I agree with the proposal to repeal the one year bar for asylum applicants, the majority of President Obama’s four-part plan focuses on increased security from immigrant communities and increased criminalization of immigrant communities. As we dare to dream bigger, we envision a world in which CIR undoes the criminalization and deportation of people who experience their immigration status through race, poverty, sexuality and gender identity.

    For a comprehensive immigration plan to be truly useful for our communities President Obama must:

    • Repeal the IIRIRA act that makes a person deportable for crimes they commit to survive, called “crimes of moral turpitude;”
    • Dismantle Secure Communities, which mandates that any person arrested by local law enforcement will have their fingerprints sent to ICE to determine if they are a “match” in the immigration database.
    • Repeal the U and T Visa requirements that survivors cooperate with law enforcement and prosecutors  in order to obtain immigration benefits.
    • Permanently end the ways in which the immigration system relies on local law enforcement, prisons and jails, militarization, privatization and prosecution for its existence.

    We want to be able to tell our trans immigrant clients that there is hope for a real pathway to “legalization” in which they can thrive and live without fear of violence, discrimination, criminalization or death. That President Obama’s “big plan” will help them in some way; that out country cares about all immigrants whether they are getting married, joining the military or not. Finally, we want to tell our clients that a path exists for immigration, through which they can express their gender identities, expressions and whole selves without fear of criminalization and deportation.

    Join us as we ask that CIR is not a plan to increase militarization, assimilation and capitalism but instead a commitment to support our communities who are resilient, vibrant and necessary!