Mississippi Immigrants' Rights Alliance Rallies at State Capitol

Amidst increased hostility to immigrants' rights, Ms. Foundation grantee, the Mississippi Immigrants' Rights Alliance, is holding a rally at the Mississippi state capitol today to call for the repeal of a bill that makes it a felony for undocumented immigrants to work in the state and an end to unjust workplace raids.

Southeastern Immigrants Organizations Rally: Repeal Racist Bill; No More Raids in Our Communities

Hard on the heels of two major ICE raids in Mississippi and South Carolina, immigrants' rights organizations from across the southeastern U.S. are demanding an end to the raids, and are standing in solidarity with Mississippi immigrants who request that Senate Bill 2988 be repealed during the upcoming 2009 Legislative Session.

Immigrant rights marchers will walk through downtown Jackson on Thursday, December 4th:

From the Regency Hotel, 400 Greymont Avenue
at 2:00 pm
To a press rally inside
The Mississippi State Capitol Rotunda
at 3:00 pm

The largest ICE raid in U.S. history and one of the most vitriolic anti-immigrant bills ever to pass in our nation's history have taken place here in Mississippi this past year. SB 2988 criminalizes immigrants for simply wanting to work in Mississippi, and will end up draining state coffers at a time when our economy cannot afford it. Raids victims here and elsewhere in the southeastern United States are now unable to work; migrants, who came to the U.S. to escape the economic slavery in their own countries, are too afraid to return to their home countries to face a worse fate.

"We are between a rock and a hard place," said one detainee, a young man with a dependent mother and siblings. "We can't work…yet every month we have rent to pay, and other indispensable things to survive. If we leave, we lose our case. If we stay, we suffer." Members of the raid-affected community will be present to discuss the impact of this dehumanizing law enforcement policy.

For Further Information:
Bill Chandler, (601) 968-5182
Alisha Johnson, (678) 333-4866

Read more about previous ICE raids and MIRA's work.