March on Washington for Immigration Reform

This Sunday 21 March 2010 the Center for Community Change (CCC), many of our grantee partners, dozens of progressive organizations, and tens of thousands of individuals are marching on Washington, DC in support of immigration reform. Activists around the country have signed on, calling for a vision of "reform [that] includes immigrants and native-born U.S. citizens working shoulder to shoulder to achieve better wages, working conditions, and labor protections, and of an America that's back to work, with a fair balance between main street and Wall Street." [March for America website].

These voices have already made an impact on Capitol Hill. Last week, in anticipation of this huge action, President Obama met with leading grassroots activists and advocacy leaders to establish a path forward for a comprehensive reform agenda. It's a step in the right direction, but we need more than a plan to plan. We need real reform.

We urge you to step forward and join Ms. Foundation grantees including Legal Momentum, Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance, National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, Latina Initiative and National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health in Washington, DC. Tell lawmakers that America's founding principles demand true democracy, where social and economic justice is guaranteed for all.

Sign-up to march. Show your support online. Learn more.

Fair Pay for All

Vicky Cintra, Organizing Coordinator, of Ms. Foundation grantee Mississippi Immigrants’ Rights Alliance (MIRA) on asking the pastor of Howard Industries CEO Billy Howard whether he teaches his flock about paying workers fairly. In August 2008, Howard Industries was the location of the largest workplace immigration raid in U.S. history and the company still owes back pay to over 200 workers.

Read more on the Ms. Foundation blog about MIRA’s call for a moratorium on raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Read coverage of MIRA's ongoing advocacy to secure workers' wages.

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.

Ms. Foundation Grantee Calls for ICE Raid Moratorium

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials rounded up almost 600 assembly plant workers on Tuesday in the small, rural town of Laurel, Mississippi in the largest raid on a single workplace in U.S. history. Local communities are reeling in its wake, as families have been torn apart, the plant’s operations suspended, and a climate of fear has settled over surrounding towns.

Upon surveying the humanitarian crisis the raid has created, Ms. Foundation Grantee Mississippi Immigrants' Rights Alliance (MIRA) is calling for a moratorium on such actions and asking supporters to join them in contacting federal legislators [find yours here] to demand a stop to the attacks on immigrant families and workers.

Of the 600 or so workers caught up in the raid, approximately 100 have been allowed to return to their homes to care for children or for other humanitarian reasons. Over 475 individuals, however, are being held four hours away in a federal facility in Jena, Louisiana where they await deportation hearings.

In addition to providing legal assistance and coordinating volunteer lawyers to provide services to the detained workers, MIRA is working with local organizations to provide basic necessities to families. Since breadwinners have either been detained or confined to their homes, many families now lack even access to food. MIRA has set up a relief fund to support affected families and the work of volunteers at http://www.yourmira.org/.