Union Teachers Are Donating Their Stimulus Checks to the Undocumented

Undocumented workers are excluded from unemployment protections and stimulus checks, but not from union solidarity.

BY BROOKE ANDERSON

OAKLAND, Calif.—Olivia Udovic and her husband, Edgar Sánchez—both teachers in Oakland—are among millions of Americans receiving federal stimulus checks. The money didn’t stay in their bank account for long, however; the pair is part of a nationwide movement of teachers paying their checks forward to undocumented families in their schools. 

Udovic teaches kindergarten at Manzanita SEED Elementary, a dual-language school serving many immigrant households. Sixty-five percent of students there receive free or reduced-cost lunch. When schools closed March 27 in response to Covid-19, Udovic and her coworkers called parents for wellness check-ins. “Families were losing jobs, couldn’t pay rent and were left without food—especially undocumented folks who couldn’t access unemployment benefits,” Udovic says. 

The $2.2 trillion federal Covid-19 stimulus package provides $1,200 to taxpayers bringing home less than $75,000 a year (plus $500 per child) and expands unemployment benefits. But undocumented workers are excluded from both provisions, despite collectively paying billions in taxes. California created its own $125 million coronavirus disaster relief fund to provide $500 in cash to some 250,000 undocumented immigrants in the state—a little less than 15% of the undocumented workforce. For many, that won’t fill the gap.

So Udovic and other members of her union, the Oakland Education Association (OEA), organized teachers to pledge their stimulus checks to Centro Legal de la Raza’s Oakland Undocumented Relief (OUR) Fund. The fund provides $500 checks or pre-paid debit cards to each family—an important consideration for many undocumented people who do not have bank accounts. According to Udovic, as of April 20, 33 teachers have pledged more than $16,000. 

Number of Undocumented Declines

By Jose A. Del Real

• NY Times.  27, 2018
• •  
  Shortly after then-candidate Donald Trump announced his presidential campaign, he suggested that the number of undocumented immigrants living in the United States could exceed 30 million. But a new study puts the number far lower and shows a significant decline over more than a decade.

The study, published by the Pew Research Center on Tuesday, put the number of undocumented immigrants in the United States at 10.7 million in 2016, down from a peak of 12.2 million in 2007.

As Pew analyzed new data from recent years, its researchers found that “it wasn’t just that the numbers declined, but also who these unauthorized immigrants are had changed since 2007,” said D’Vera Cohn, a senior writer at Pew Research.

The estimates are derived from figures published by sources like the Census Bureau, which accounts for foreign-born people living in the United States, along with other demographic data including death rates and legal border admissions.


As Pew analyzed new data from recent years, its researchers found that “it wasn’t just that the numbers declined, but also who these unauthorized immigrants are had changed since 2007,” said D’Vera Cohn, a senior writer at Pew Research.

The estimates are derived from figures published by sources like the Census Bureau, which accounts for foreign-born people living in the United States, along with other demographic data including death rates and legal border admissions.

How Schools Deal With Immigrants

State Superintendent Torlakson Applauds New Guidelines for Undocumented Students and Families

SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson today applauded new guidelines to protect the rights of undocumented students and their families at California’s more than 10,000 public schools.

State Attorney General Xavier Becerra developed the Promoting a Safe and Secure Learning Environment for All: Guidance and Model Policies to Assist California K–12 Schools in Responding to Immigration Issues guide  (PDF), to help schools develop policies to safeguard the privacy and personal information of students.

“This guide gives students, parents, educators, and the public, valuable information about the laws and the limits of immigration enforcement,” said Torlakson. “It’s a big step forward in support of all of our efforts to make sure students and their parents, regardless of citizenship status, feel safe and welcome at public schools.”

Trump's ICE Agents Operate Within Schools

It’s been an excruciating six months since 14-year-old Fatima Avelica watched, sobbing, as immigration agents picked up her father on their way to school.

Fatima’s father, Rómulo Avelica-González, who immigrated illegally from Mexico in the 1990s, had driven Fatima and her 12-year-old sister, Yuleni, to school in Los Angeles every morning for years, despite a deportation order hanging over his head. But a month after Donald Trump took office as president and called for ramped-up immigration arrests, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pulled over the family’s car.

The wrenching video of the arrest that Fatima took from the backseat went viral, capturing a moment that would come to symbolize the anguish of schoolchildren who have seen their families torn apart by aggressive immigration enforcement, as well as the anxiety of others who worry their families could be next.

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Fatima Avelia shot this video when her undocumented father, Rómulo Avilez-González, was arrested in Los Angeles while driving her to school.

For many of the estimated 1 million undocumented children in the US — and the roughly 4.5 million young people, like Fatima and Yuleni, born here and with at least one undocumented parent (like Fatima and Yuleni) — anxiety travels with them from home to school, creating a climate of fear in which learning is disrupted and classrooms are destabilized.

CTA: A Call to Action for the Public Education All California's Students Deserve

Public education is the foundation of our 21st-century democracy. Social justice for all begins with a quality, free public education. Our public schools are where our students come to be educated in the fullest sense of that word, including as citizens of this great country. As educators, we strive every day to make every public school and college a place where we prepare the nation's young people to contribute to our society, economy and citizenry. 

California must continue to lead the nation. The 325,000 members of CTA are committed to making sure all California's students get the public education they deserve. We ask all Californians, including elected leaders regardless of party affiliation, to join us in supporting a strong, inclusive, safe and innovative public education system that ensures all students can succeed, regardless of their zip code. Our public schools must remain centers of our communities, and not become corporate profit centers. We hold these values because all children, regardless of family circumstances, where they live, where they were born, how they look, who they love, or the language they speak have the right to a public education that helps them reach their full potential. 

Go to the CTA Tool Kit. http://www.cta.org/forallstudents#toolkit

Participate in May 1 actions.

Why May 1?

May 1st has been historically linked to international worker' rights. On May 1, 1886, the U.S. Federation of Organized Trade and Labor Unions (including immigrant workers) ruled that an 8-hour work day, would be a full and legal work day. NEA and the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools (AROS) are also holding a national day of action on May 1. May 1, or May Day, continues to be a national day of action to raise awareness about immigration rights and the need to keep families together as they fight for a better life.  How can I get involved?

CTA is asking our local chapters and members to hold actions with parents and community members at their local school sites. Actions may include "walk-ins" with parents and community members, unveiling new safe zone policies and safe zone resolutions, taking the pledge, hosting community meetings, and more. Please join our Facebook group and fill out our form to let us know how you are participating.

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.