Friday, November 15, 2013

Deportations Are Wrong, Not Only for Military Families

As the fight for immigration reform winds through Congress, the President continues to oversee 1,100 unfair deportations each day.  As the White House pushes House Republicans to act, the President has the responsibility to do everything in his power to also grant relief to those who would benefit from reform.


Today DHS declared it would remove military families from the threat of deportations, recognizing that deportations are wrong and demonstrating again that the White House has the power and ability to stop deportations. Last year, the deferred action for childhood arrival program that demonstrated that the White House can exercise executive authority to both address the unnecessary suffering caused by deportations and advance the immigration debate in a positive direction.

Meanwhile, the President's self-imposed quota of 400,000 deportations a year has caused a humanitarian crisis in Georgia where local police have been turned into Arpaio's like that in Arizona through the Secure Communities program, implemented in 2009, and still-active 287g agreements that have been ended in other jurisdictions due to inherent profiling. As a result, Georgia ranks among the top states deporting its residents. The state houses the Stewart Detention Center, one of the largest in the country, and its immigration courts log the highest percentage of casework resulting in deportations of any in the country.

Undocumented Georgians who have personally experienced the harm of deportation and profiling caused by local police acting as immigration enforcement in the state will hold a rally and press conference to share their stories and call on the President to act as part of the growing national #Not1More Deportation campaign.

A growing movement across the country is expanding its efforts to pressure the President to use his existing executive authority -  a move which will bolster efforts in Congress to win inclusive immigration reform with a path to citizenship for the nation's 11 million undocumented Americans.

* Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights (GLAHR)

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