Dear Casa San José Amigos,
Welcome back to our email newsletter!
Help:
Are you ever available on a Saturday from 12 – 2 p.m.? Starting now and throughout the summer, we need a few volunteers each Saturday (you could sign up for one day or several.) There are 2 activities: one is to help supervise a family visit (just to be there in the room), and the other to help with arrangements for a legal clinic. Spanish is not required. If you can help with this and for more information, please contact Sr. Valerie at srvalerie@casasanjose.org.
Action:
We are still looking for participants for our Community Resistance Zones. This campaign creates safe zones in our city where residents are both trained on their rights and on how to support any neighbor subject to racial profiling, police or ICE raids, hate crimes and any other forms of criminalization We are looking for people to sign up for the training sessions on June 2 and 3, at Allegheny County Department of Human Services, downtown at 1 Smithfield St. Training will cover important information that will help folks become better allies. For more information, please contact Monica at monica@casasanjose.org.
There is a “discharge petition” circulating now in the US House that needs 218 signatures to release several immigration bills, that have been held back by Republican leaders, for a vote – one of them is the DREAM Act. This would finally force action on immigration, and is the closest thing yet to legislative protection for the Dreamers. Check here to see if your representative (find them here) is on board.
News:
Fernanda Ruiz- a Dreamer from Pittsburgh who is a junior at Penn State, in the US since she was 4 – spoke last week to students at Baldwin High School about immigration and DACA in general, and personally about being undocumented and her hopes for the future. Her teacher said “What my students learned today from Fernanda is absolutely invaluable, and I am sure that they all left school today knowing for more than they could have ever learned from a textbook or from watching the news. “
We are delighted to report that the Port Authority has changed its proposed policy to have police officers check to see if transit riders had paid their fares. Pittsburghers for Public Transit posted on their Facebook page: “So grateful to our coalition partners The Alliance for Police Accountability, Casa San Jose and The Thomas Merton Center and all the bus riders, bus drivers and organizations that supported the fight to prevent the criminalization of our transit riders!” Special thanks to Monica for being a leader in this fight.
The United Way has a profile of Jeimy on its website, as winner of Be There Award.
AND gracias, gracias, mil gracias to everyone involved in every way with our Fiesta del Sol, who together made it such a great success. We are deeply grateful to all of you.
More:
“The House Republican Blockade on Immigration Finally Ruptures: Fed up after years of inaction, a group of GOP lawmakers is close to forcing votes on bills to protect immigrants at risk of deportation,” Russell Berman, The Atlantic, May 18.
“Koch-backed group gives support to Democrats on immigration,” Tal Kopan, CNN, May 17. A surprise!
“U.S. ends practice that gave some immigrants reprieves from deportation,” Mica Rosenberg, Reuters, May 17.
Thank you for joining us!