PHOTOS: Workers press Coble for immigration reform

Dozens of workers and immigrant allies rallied outside of US Congressman Howard Coble's office in Greensboro today, calling on him to support comprehensive immigration reform. The event — organized by Working America, the NC AFL-CIO, SEANC, Teamsters Local 391, Guilford County Association of Educations, Immigrant Rights Working Group of Guilford County and the Greensboro NAACP —began as a rally before the coalition delivered petitions to Coble's office.

Photos by Eric Ginsburg

Greensboro religious leaders unite to support immigration reform

Numerous Greensboro clergy gathered at Temple Emanuel this afternoon to speak in support of comprehensive immigration reform at the national level. Local non-profit FaithAction International House organized the press conference to show Senators Kay Hagan and Richard Burr the unified sentiment among various faith communities across the city.

Rev. David Fraccaro, FaithAction's executive director, predicted that the North Carolina senators will cast two of more decisive votes when Senate addresses the reform bill in June.

FaithAction staff members Ghaisha Yahaha-Mohammed and Endy Mendez (l-r) share their experiences since immigrating.

Rabbi Fred Guttman of Temple Emanuel

Rev. Jeff Paschal of Guilford Park Presbyterian Church

Rev. Clarence J. Shuford of St. Philip African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church

Pastors Raul Landa and Jonathan Lewis of Christ Wesleyan Church

Minister Wesley Morris and Rev. Dr. Nelson Johnson of Faith Community Church

After speaking, each cleric signed the FaithAction poster, which will be mailed to Sen. Hagan and Sen. Burr on Friday.

VIDEO: A plea to support legislation allowing undocumented students to receive in-state tuition

 
Erendira Méndez, a Greensboro resident who works at Faith Action International, tells Winston-Salem City Council about her experience coming to the United States as a child with undocumented parents, and trying to pursue educational opportunities for herself and for her daughter. Méndez was part of a group of people who urged the council to pass a resolution in support of legislation allowing undocumented students to receive in-state tuition at North Carolina universities and community colleges during the public comment period on Monday night.

Look for the full story in tomorrow's edition of YES! Weekly. 

Undocumented youth seek in-state tuition resolution from Winston-Salem council

El Cambio, a Yadkin County-based group dedicated to advancing the rights of undocumented youth that has built strong alliances with LGBT activists, plans to bring a delegation of high school students to City Hall in Winston-Salem tonight.

The organization is seeking a resolution from city council in support of in-state tuition for undocumented students at state universities and community colleges. The NC General Assembly ultimately decides that question. The group plans to address city council during the public comment period. The meeting begins at 7 p.m.

 

Greensboro to support "alternative ID" for immigrants

Police Chief Ken Miller signaled in a memo yesterday that the department is on board for a proposed "alternative ID" that would allow immigrants to obtain a form of identification that the police department would recognize, thereby reducing the need for an arrest in some cases.

The alternative ID is scheduled for launch in early July and will be formally announced at a community meeting on immigration hosted this Sunday at Saint Mary's Catholic Church. The impetus for the project — which mirrors a system used in Winston-Salem, Durham and numerous other cities around the country — grew out of immigrant community conversations with the police department facilitated by FaithAction International House. The nonprofit agency will be responsible for printing the IDs and working out a few small details, but the city is supportive and ready to move forward with the project. 

From the chief's memo: 

This initiative, while providing dignity and inclusiveness to immigrant residents in our community, will provide Greensboro Police officers with crucial information to better address and resolve legal and criminal concerns involving immigrants who may not otherwise have a valid form of ID. It can save tremendous time and resources by allowing officers to issue citations instead of having to make custodial arrests, keeping our officers in the field and available to respond to calls for service or doing proactive work.  

Read the full document here. 

YES! Weekly will have a full news story on the issue, including coverage of Sunday's meeting, in next week's issue. The alternative ID has been in the making since last year and would only be recognized by the Greensboro Police Department (and not, say, the Guilford County Sheriff's office or highway patrol) and is not a substitute for a drivers' license or other government-issued identification. The initiative is also supported by the city manager's office, Assistant City Manager Jim Westmoreland confirmed, adding that city council has been updated on the plan but will not have to vote to approve it.

Immigrant driver's licenses to be altered

Young immigrants who will begin receiving driver's licenses throughout the state next month will have a dramatically different license, Greensboro-based immigration attorney Ben Snyder reports.

Our short news article today about the licenses (which you can read here) didn't include details about what the licenses for deferred action recipients will look like. Here's an image rendered by Jorge Rivas for Colorlines.

Notice that the license is vertical, has a pink header and says "no lawful status." Immigrant activists are calling the license discriminatory. Read more from Rivas' Colorlines article.

The information was originally reported by the Spanish-language Que Pasa newspaper.

AG says DMV should issue drivers licenses to undocumented young people

The NC Attorney General's office has issued an opinion that the Division of Motor Vehicles is required to issue driver's licenses to undocumented young people who have been granted deferred action under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program established by President Obama through executive order last summer.

The opinion came in the form of a letter today from Chief Deputy Attorney General Grayson G. Kelley to J. Eric Boyette, acting commissioner of the Division of Motor Vehicles.

Kelley wrote that deferred status "is a grant of permission to remain in the country for a specified period of time without receiving formal immigration status. The grant of deferred status therefore establishes lawful presence for the period of deferment.

"It is therefore our opinion that individuals who have been granted deferred action under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy directive are lawfully present in the United States for the period of deferment," Kelley concluded. "As such, NC Gen. Stat. §20-7(s), which states that DMV shall issue a drivers license of limited duration to persons who present valid documentation demonstrating deferment and meet all statutory requirements, requires that such licenses be issued."

The Latin American Coalition, based in Charlotte, applauded the decision.

"We are very happy that the North Carolina Attorney General's office has decided on a common-sense solution for our state," Executive Director Jess George said in a prepared statement. "This decision continues to move North Carolina in a positive direction and provides a shining example of how access and opportunity benefits all of our communities and the state as a whole."

Kelley's opinion aligns with the federal government's stance on the issue.

"The relief an individual receives through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals process is the same for immigration purposes as that obtained by any other person who receives deferred action," Chris Bentley, press secretary for US Citizenship and Immigration Services, told NPR yesterday. 

At least one state interprets the executive order differently.

"It wasn't approved through Congress," Matthew Benson, spokesman for Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, told NPR.

"It's represented nowhere in the law," he added. "And for that reason we believe that these individuals don't qualify for a driver's license in the state of Arizona."

PHOTOS: Two arrested protesting deportation at Sen. Hagan's office

Two immigration activists connected to the NC Dream Team were arrested Thursday for refusing to leave US Sen. Kay Hagan's Greensboro office. The two women were protesting the scheduled deportation of single mother Maria Juana Perez, pictured in the center (in a chair wearing a dark coat).

Perez, who lives in Greensboro, has two young daughters (also pictured) who are US citizens. She was arrested for driving without a license and has been in the country since 2000.

Over 20 supporters, including her sister (the woman in blue seated right) assembled at Hagan's office, some meeting with her staff and others holding banners outside. Perez is scheduled for deportation to Mexico on Dec. 27, two days after Christmas — which coincidentally is her birthday.

The two activists who were arrested around 6:50 pm did so as an act of civil disobedience while supporters and reporters looked on. Below, Elisa Benitez can be seen in red through the window in Hagan's office while a police officer (in yellow) talks to the other Dreamer being arrested. More coverage in the next issue of YES! Weekly, available in print and online Wednesday.

Photos and reporting by Eric Ginsburg.

PHOTO: Dreamer graduates from High Point University

We didn't get this photo in time to run it in this week's issue, but here is Irving Zavaleta-Jimenez after graduating with an MBA from High Point University.

He is one of the several immigrant youth interviewed for this week's article about "deferred action," which grants a two year reprieve from deportation and a work permit aimed at helping those who came to the US as children excel.

Read the full article here.




(Courtesy photo)

Rockingham sheriff sponsoring film on immigration

The Rockingham County Sheriff's Office is co-sponsoring a screening of They Come to America: The Cost of Illegal Immigration, in what it says is an attempt to examine both sides of the issue and push for immigration reform.
"It is my hope that we can come together and, after watching this movie, those in attendance will join me in contacting our Congressmen and telling them that the time has come to fix our US immigration policy," Sheriff Sam Page said in a press release. "Whichever side of this issue you may be on, I think we can all agree that our current immmigration policy needs to be fixed, and that both sides of the isle n Washington need to come together to achieve this."
The film by Dennis Michael Lynch will be shown at Rockingham Community College's auditorium for free on Monday at 6:30 p.m. The term "illegal immigrants,"  — rather than the more accurate term "undocumented immigrants" — has been criticized as biased and dehumanizing.

Orfilia Reyes wins temporary victory in immigration case

Attorneys for Orfilia Reyes, who was featured on the cover of YES! Weekly's Mothers' Day issue, said Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, did not take her into custody at her immigration check-in June 7. Community members and organizations like the American Friends Service Committee had rallied around Reyes, who has two sons living in the area. One of her sons is a US citizen and a minor, and would face bleak options in the country if his primary caregiver was deported to Guatemala. 

Read more about Reyes here. Below is part of the press release sent out June 11.

"ICE provided Ms. Reyes with a new check-in date of September 6, 2012.

'We thank the Charlotte ICE agents for their patience as Ms. Reyes continues to fight her deportation,' McKinney stated.  'However, the fight goes on.'  Ms. Reyes cannot prevent her deportation to Guatemala unless attorney for ICE agree to join a motion to reopen her case.  McKinney is currently in communication with ICE attorneys and is encouraged by ICE's decision to provide a new ICE check-in date for Ms. Reyes, as well as the tone of the conversations he has had thus far with ICE attorneys."

Dream Team vs. Folwell in playground fight

The NC Dream Team steps up its rhetoric against NC Rep. Dale Folwell, following a confrontation at the General Assembly last week.

Representative Dale Folwell of Forsyth chose to attack children by introducing HB 744. This bill serves no other purpose than to discourage parents from enrolling their children in public school by forcing them to reveal their child’s status to educators. For this reason, we have chosen to name him “North Carolina’s biggest school bully."

Full press release after jump:

Motive behind HB 744 is to prevent student enrollment
After bill and altercation at NCGA, NC DREAM Team declares Folwell “NC’s biggest school bully”
 
RALEIGH — Representative Dale Folwell of Forsyth chose to attack children by introducing HB 744. This bill serves no other purpose than to discourage parents from enrolling their children in public school by forcing them to reveal their child’s status to educators. For this reason, we have chosen to name him “North Carolina’s biggest school bully.”
 
Although supporters of HB 744 emphasize that it will not prevent undocumented students from attending school outright, it is clear that is their goal. As Folwell plainly acknowledged, "The main thing I want is to answer the question: What policies are there at the state level that are making North Carolina a magnet for illegal immigration?" […] "I want to demagnetize this state."(Bertrand M. Gutierrez, "Illegal Students Targeted," Winston-Salem Journal, June 1, 2011).
 
The education of immigrants — no matter their status — is not a state policy, but a federally protected right. Folwell has attempted to undermine this right six times as a legislator. Knowing will not “demagnetize” the state, so there is no point in making educators spend their precious time collecting it. Not educating undocumented immigrants will create an uneducated and criminalized subclass living within the state.
 
Completely in line with being a school bully, Folwell physically confronted a member of the NC DREAM Team at the General Assembly. In response to a press release in which we called supporters of this bill “unprincipled cowards,” Folwell tracked down one of our members who spoke on HB 744 the previous day to confront him.
 
“You don’t have the balls to call me a coward to my face, do you?” Folwell said, exasperated. “I want to talk to you man to man.” Folwell also demanded the home addresses of everyone who opposed the bill.
 
This is the behavior and agenda of a bully, not the speaker pro tem of the NC House. We need legislators to act and legislate thoughtfully.