Community Schools Forum

Here To Stay Rally (Jose Torres)

WCVI Denounces Trump Actions on Deportations

                                                                                                      

WCVI President Denounces Trump Administrations Directive on Deportations

Trump Policy Has Gone from Bad to Worse

(Los Angeles, Feb 21, 2017) The narrative that early Trump Administration executive orders were so controversial and amounted to such bad policy because the Trump team was in chaos has turned out to be utterly false.  After a month of self-organization, the "well written" Trump Department of Homeland Security (DHS) implementing memo spells out the worst-case scenario of mass deportations, criminalization, and border militarization.

 

Indeed WCVI accuses the Trump Administration of seeking to launch a sui generis ethnic cleansing campaign against undocumented immigrants, 85% of whom are from Latin America, Africa and Asia.

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Definition of ethnic cleansing:  the expulsion, imprisonment, or killing of an ethnic minority by a dominant majority in order to achieve ethnic homogeneity

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The DHS Memo broadly defines who should be deported, far more so than under Obama, and in practice would cover nearly all undocumented rather than the 1% with criminal records. It also enhances the existing DHS/ICE "deportation force" with 15,000 new personnel. 

 

Under Trumps' plan, human and civil rights violations will impact tens if not hundreds of thousands of immigrants and citizens alike. Under Obama, 20,000 US citizens were mistakenly captured in raids, this kind of ethno-racial profiling will get worse with the new directives.  

 

The cost to taxpayers of hunting down the 11 million undocumented will be tens of billions of dollars.  

Trump- DeVos Begin Attack on Public Education

Action Alert: US House bill pushes the privatization agenda

The new administration's attack on public education has begun, and we need you to take action today to stop it.

In late January, HR 610 was introduced by Steve King of Iowa, with representatives from Maryland, Texas and Arizona signing on.

You can read a summary of the bill at the website. HR 610, the School Choice Act, would eliminate the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, which was passed as a part of  Lyndon B. Johnson's "War on Poverty."  Federal funds would be used instead to create "block grants" to be used to "distribute a portion of funds to parents who elect to enroll their child in a private school or to home-school their child." It would also roll back nutritional standards for free lunches for poor children.

But that is not all.

On Tuesday, Betsy DeVos and Donald Trump gathered together parents and teachers to talk about their education agenda. Who was invited (and who was not) is telling.

Of the ten attendees, one was a public school teacher and one was a principal of a public school that specializes in special education. There was one public school parent who also had children in private school.  The rest of the group were homeschoolers, charter school parents or private school representatives.

School District - Safe Haven

We Can Resist Trump's Immigration Raids and the Wall

By Duane Campbell

The chaos created by Donald Trump’s ban on refugees is only the beginning of a crisis that Trump and his allies are creating.  Less noticed was Trump’s rollout of executive actions on immigration and the border wall  on Jan. 25. These executive orders were the opening act of what is certain to be an aggressive crackdown on unauthorized immigration.  The left responded quickly to the Jan. 27 ban on refugees with important protests and significant legal challenges.  However, Trump has created so many crises in his first weeks  that it would be easy to miss the long-term train wreck being created by Trump’s earlier executive  actions on the border wall and the expansion of arrests and deportations.

On Jan. 25 Trump signed an executive order on immigration

that directs ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents to use a  broadened definition of  “criminal” and focus deportation efforts not only on those who have been convicted of crimes, but also those who have been charged, or “have committed acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense.”  This order will increase the number of persons subject to deportation by at least 2 million and the order will triple the number of agents in the ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations office and give them broad power to ultimately decide who should be deported. Increased deportations have already begun under this new executive order.

http://antiracismdsa.blogspot.com/2017/02/phoenix-immigrant-mother-arrested.html

Past use of aggressive interior enforcement, then called “Secure Communities,” was an abject failure. ICE agents conducted raids and arrested people at work sites, schools, and on the streets.  Often they jailed complete families.  In most cases, these arrests and deportations depended upon the cooperation of local police and social service agencies (see sanctuary cities, below). The campaigns deported parents of U.S. citizens, disrupting families, schools, and workplaces. The raids were too often done without proper warrants and other procedural safeguards.

The Wall (or Fence)

We should not assume that each of the Trump executive orders will be accepted and implemented.  On the contrary.  The orders produce contradictions and will produce resistance.

Yes, the U.S. can build a wall or fencing on the U.S. side of the border, except for that portion of the border that is on the Tohono O’odhom reservation in Arizona.   But the wall will be an expensive failure. 

Trump’s demand to build the wall and to impose tariffs is producing a reaction in Mexico.   The U.S. not only imports from Mexico, U.S. corporations also exported to Mexico  $267  billion dollars worth of goods  in 2015. Mexico is the U.S.’s second largest export market.  A tariff on the U.S. side will likely produce a tariff on the Mexican side that could cost some 1 million jobs in the U.S.

Arturo Rodriguez, President of the United Farmworkers union (UFW) asks, “Since some 50 % of agricultural labor in California, Florida and Texas is undocumented, when they arrest all of these workers, who is going to feed the nation?”  The answer to his question is, if the border is closed and mass arrests make workers not available, most vegetable production will move to Mexico and to other countries.  Is that progress?

The Trump administration is being reckless and poorly informed in matters of foreign policy as well as domestic issues.  Building Trump’s wall and threatening to make Mexico pay for the wall built on  U.S. land was  a belligerent act championed in the Trump campaign.   This poorly informed effort ignores many of the realities of the U.S.-Mexico relationship.  Mexico provides the primary security against migration to the U.S. on our southern border.  Mexican police and military restrict migration and turn thousands of would-be migrants back each year. 

The Mexican army and police also provide the primary obstacle to migrants from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala  from reaching the U.S. border.  The U.S. pays the Mexican forces to do this enforcement.  Given Trump’s provocative statements and acts, they could simply stop serving as a border security force for the U.S. The end of bi-national police cooperation would massively increase immigration and severely reduce efforts to restrict drug cartels from moving drugs into the U.S.

The Mexican political system and the police are corrupt, but the situation could get much worse.  The Mexican legislature is already considering several bills to prevent Mexico from cooperating with the Trump surge in deportations.  Readers should know that the Mexican presidency is up for election in 2018, and the current dominant party (PRI) is in disgrace, in part because it is seen as subservient to the Trump administration.  Nationalism and resisting Yankee interference is a potent political force in Mexico  and a left populist – Manuel Lopez Obrador – is currently far ahead in the polls.

Deportations

 Yet another structural weakness of the Trump plan for expanding deportations further makes it almost impossible for the plan to work.

Deportations currently depend upon the persons arrested agreeing to be quickly deported.  Unless they have convicted of a prior felony, persons arrested are immediately offered a “voluntary” departure.  If they sign it, most of those arrested will be deported within 2-3 days. (In California it is usually the same day.)

Immigrant rights activists have developed a strategy to defeat these deportations.  Those arrested are encouraged to refuse to sign the “voluntary departure.”  Instead, they would insist upon having legal counsel. All persons inside the U.S. have a right to counsel (not only citizens).

If some 20%- 30% of those arrested begin to refuse to sign, the jails will fill within days – even the private prisons.  If those arrested insist on legal counsel, the courts will be overloaded. 

When those arrested have an attorney, some 40% win the right to stay.  And, another 40% may not win, but they will delay deportation for 2-5 years while their cases are heard in the back logged courts (long enough for the children to grow up).

Even with the growth of private prisons, the detention centers will fail. Immigration hearing officers in the U.S. had a backlog of 453,948 cases in 2015.  It takes some 635 days to process the average case.  While Trump will expand the number of case officers, the hearings will create a backlog of years.

Sanctuary Cities

Trump’s threatening of sanctuary cities and communities that offer protection to immigrants because they recognize the injustice in current immigration laws and practices will undermine public safety.

His threat to take money from sanctuary cities is unconstitutional overreach.  By defending sanctuary cities, citizens and tax payers can severely limit Trump’s abuse.   The state of Texas is considering defunding sanctuary cities there while the California legislature is considering a bill to make California a sanctuary state. Because of shared financing and tax collection, states have more ability to withhold funds from sanctuary cities than does the federal government. Several California sanctuary cities are already preparing the legal groundwork to resist paying specific taxes into the federal treasury if Trump  follows through on his threats to cut funds to these cities.

Immigration officers (ICE) need the cooperation of local law enforcement and social services to do their jobs successfully.  ICE has far too few agents and too few jails to effectively remove large numbers of people.  The last time such removal was practiced – in Operation Wetback  in  1952– the effort  was only  effective because local cities and social service institutions cooperated.   The removal was popular. This time, many will not cooperate.

There are some 300 sanctuary cities and districts in the U.S.  Citizens and voters in these cities can have an important role in their defense.

Readers should check to see if your local city, county, or state has sanctuary resolutions.  Usually, these resolutions contain statements such as:

1. Public resources, including salaries and equipment funded by local and state taxes, should be limited to serving the jurisdiction supplying these resources and its residents.  City, county and school district funds should not be used to implement or enforce federal immigration laws that are the responsibility of federal law enforcement.

2. Local law enforcement resources should be solely devoted to enforcement of local and state laws, protecting all residents and serving the community.  Enforcement of federal laws, including immigration laws, should be left to the federal government unless the individual involved is a convicted felon.

Based upon such sanctuary resolutions, we can insist that local resources and personnel not spend time and resources aiding this misguided federal immigration enforcement.

If your local area does not have a sanctuary resolution, see models on DSA’s Immigration Rights Committee resource pages  and try to pass sanctuary  resolutions in your  area.

There are numerous groups working to protect the rights, the safety, and the families of the immigrants among us. Working with your local DSA, join with these groups to insist that local resources and personnel not spend time and resources aiding  Trump’s enforcement efforts.

Working together, we are not powerless in the face of executive authority.

Duane Campbell is a professor emeritus of bilingual multicultural education at California State University Sacramento, a union activist, and past chair of Sacramento DSA. He serves on the Immigrant Rights Committee of DSA’s Anti Racism Working Group.

antiracismdsa: Immigrants and Allies Fight Back

antiracismdsa: Immigrants and Allies Fight Back: During his first weeks as President, Donald Trump has enacted some alarming and draconian executive orders. The most alarming has been h...

Myths About Immigration

MYTH: "Immigrants take our jobs"

The largest wave of immigration to the U.S. since the early 1900s coincided with our lowest national unemployment rate and fastest economic growth. Immigrants create new jobs by forming new businesses, buying homes, spending their incomes on American goods and services, paying taxes and raising the productivity of U.S. businesses.¹ In fact, between 1990 and 2004, roughly 9 out of 10 native-born workers with at least a high school diploma experienced wage gains because of increased immigration.

A legal flow of immigrants based on workforce demand strengthens the U.S. economy by keeping productivity high and countering negative impacts as the U.S. aging population swells. Of the twenty occupations that will see the largest growth in the next seven years, twelve of them only require on-the-job-training--including jobs in SEIU's core industries like home care, cleaning/janitorial services, child care, and hospitality services.³ But as native-born workers seek higher education and move up the occupational ladder, the number of native-born workers seeking employment in these industries has shrunk.

The problem with today's economy is not immigrants; the problem is our broken immigration laws that allow big business to exploit workers who lack legal status, driving down wages for all workers. If every immigrant were required to get into the system, pay their dues, and become U.S. citizens, we could block big business' upper hand, eliminate the two-tiered workforce, and build a united labor movement that raises wages and living standards for all workers.

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has created some information cards concerning some of the most popular myths about immigration.  For example, the myth that Immigrants take our jobs.

The cards and information are here. http://www.seiu.org/cards/the-8-worst-myths-about-immigration

‘Bad Dude’? No, but Deported Anyway - The New York Times

‘Bad Dude’? No, but Deported Anyway - The New York Times

Why Teaching Civics Must Be a Priority in the Era of Trump

Kristina Riga

When I was about 10, a classmate in my small-town school in Latvia liked to tell me in between classes that he hated Jews. I was the only Jewish kid in school, and one day as I walked home I heard steps behind me. My eyes caught his, and we stood there for a moment. I still remember his face—hazel eyes, closely cropped blond hair—and his navy uniform jacket over a white shirt. Suddenly, I heard a crunch as his fist landed on my left cheekbone, and I fell backward on a sidewalk damp with melting snow. I still remember the hollow ringing in my left ear. I looked around to scream for help, but the streets were empty. I've never felt more terrified and alone.

"There is nothing we can do to change him," my father said in our garage the next day. He wore a large black boxing glove on his left hand that he made me practice hitting late into the night. "You have to throw the punch from your shoulder, and pack the weight of your entire body into it," he said. "As soon as you show any fear, you've already lost."

My mother and I eventually left Latvia, and bullying was a big reason for me. It's been 22 years since I've thought about this particular incident—but the recent surge of media reports about xenophobic language and harassment across the United States brings those old fears roaring back. And now that we have an administration that has welcomed into the White House advisers with a long history of promoting Islamophobia and boosting white nationalists, I find myself wondering what that means for today's bullies and their victims.

In a 2015 survey, 1 in 5 Muslim students in California said they experienced discrimination by a school staff member.

Extreme views can be socially contagious, especially among young people, who are more susceptible than adults to being influenced by their peers. As a journalist, I report on schools, and teachers have been telling me that violent rhetoric is more common, and that they're struggling to find the right approaches to root it out. But some educators are also part of the problem. In a 2015 survey, 1 in 5 Muslim students in California said they experienced discrimination by a school staff member. According to a complaint filed by the American Civil Liberties Union last year, when a Muslim sixth-grader from Somalia raised his hand to answer a question, a teacher at a school in Phoenix snapped, "I can't wait until Trump is elected. He's going to deport all you Muslims…You're going to be the next terrorist, I bet." (The school denies these allegations.)

Corretta Scott King on Jeff Sessions

The Honorable Strom Thurmond, Chairman
Committee on the Judiciary
Re: Nomination of Jefferson B. Sessions
U.S. Judge, southern/District of Alabama

Hearing, March 13, 1986

Dear Senator Thurmond:

I write to express my sincere opposition to the confirmation of Jefferson B. Sessions as a federal district court judge for the Southern District of Alabama. My professional and personal roots in Alabama are deep and lasting. Anyone who has used the power of his office as United States Attorney to intimidate and chill the free exercise of the ballot by citizens should not be elevated to our courts.

Mr. Sessions has used the awesome powers of his office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters. For this reprehensible conduct, he should not be rewarded with a federal judgeship.

I regret that a long-standing commitment prevents me from appearing in person to testify against this nominee. However, I have attached a copy of my statement opposing Mr. Sessions' confirmation and I request that my statement as well as this letter be made a part of the hearing record.

I do sincerely urge you to oppose the confirmation of Mr. Sessions.

Sincerely,

Coretta Scott King

Statement of Coretta Scott King on the Nomination of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions for the United States District Court Southern District of Alabama senate Judiciary Committee
Thursday, March 13, 1986

This is the letter Senator Elizabeth Warren tried to read into the record in the U.S. Senate and then she was silenced.  Several other Democratic Senators followed by reading the letter into the record. 

DeVos Confirmed Despite Protests

Diane Ravitch's blog

Diane Ravitch

The confirmation of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education is an outrageous insult to the millions of people who send their children to public schools, to the millions of students who attend public schools, to the millions of educators who work in public schools, and to the millions of people–like me–who graduated from public school.

As expected, the vote was 50-50, and Vice President Pence was called in to cast the tie-breaking vote.

She was never a student, a parent, an educator or school board member of public schools. It is her life’s work to tear down public education. She does not respect the line of separation between church and state. She supports for-profit charter schools.

She is ignorant of federal law, federal programs, and federal policy. When asked at her Senate hearing about the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, she did not know it was a federal law. She had given no thought to lessening the burden of debt that college students bear, which now exceeds $1 trillion. At a time when the federal role in aiding students with the high cost of college needs to be redesigned, she knows nothing about it.

As the ethics counselors for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama pointed out, DeVos has financial conflicts of interest which she refuses to divest. She told the Senate committee that she had no role in her mother’s foundation, which has funneled millions of dollars to anti-LGBT organizations, but her name appears on 17 years of the foundation’s audited tax returns. She told the committee that online charter corporations produce stellar results, but researchers demonstrated with facts that she was wrong.

Choice policies in Michigan have caused the test scores in that state to decline. Detroit, overrun with charters and choice, is a chaotic mess.

It is a sad day for American public education when a person who has repeatedly expressed contempt for public schools is confirmed as Secretary of Education.

De Vos Confirmed

Never has there been such a fight.  This shows how teachers, unions, and parents can work together.
De Vos is a serious problem.  See all the prior posts.

The Senate just voted to confirm billionaire Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary. The vote came down to a 50-50 tie. In order to get DeVos confirmed, Vice President Mike Pence had to cast the deciding vote -- the first time a VP has broken a tie on a Cabinet nominee in our nation’s history. Betsy DeVos now joins a Trump Administration that’s truly ripe for corruption. Sherrod will have to work even harder to stop DeVos from taking funding away from public schools in Ohio and around the country. This confirmation was a blow -- but we can’t waste any time moving forward. Betsy DeVos was confirmed. Let’s remind her, Donald Trump, and the entire administration that they work for the American people. Not corporations. Not private educational institutions.

Elizabeth Warren Destroys Betsy DeVos At Confirmation Hearing

Vote Today. 

How Betsy DeVos Ignored and Targeted Michigan Republicans to Advance Her Hardline Education Ideology – Capital & Main

How Betsy DeVos Ignored and Targeted Michigan Republicans to Advance Her Hardline Education Ideology – Capital & Main

complete 84 Lumber Super Bowl Commercial The Entire Journey Border wall

Here is the complete commercial  that Fox News banned.

Here's How Much Betsy DeVos And Her Family Paid To Back GOP Senators Who Will Support Her | The Huffington Post

Here's How Much Betsy DeVos And Her Family Paid To Back GOP Senators Who Will Support Her | The Huffington Post