Immigration Reform: Whats Next?::UIC Latino Policy Forum!
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José G. Herrera
Jul 9, 2013, 2:30:44 AM7/9/13
to chicag...@googlegroups.com
From:
Rozalinda
Borcila, member of the NoName Collective and Moratorium on Deportations
Campaign:
“An
update on our encounter with Durbin today, since I don't think we have any
pictures to share: today the senator -- who fashions himself the savior slash
father figure of the immigrant rights movement-- held a cynical and totally
bullshit promotional
event to push the Immigration Reform Bill. Four of us from Moratorium on
Deportations infiltrated the "invitation-only" event to raise up
signs in response to his speech and to flyer with our materials summarizing and
critiquing the reform bill. He described the "necessity of border
militarization" as a "compromise that must be accepted in order for
things to get better for immigrants", and gave an account of how he
heroically "grit his teeth" and pushed "as much money as he
could into border militarization". Seriously, as much as he could. We held
up signs reading "S. 744 = genocide " and "who pays the price
for your "compromise" Senator?". and "what about the attack
on SOVEREIGN indigenous nations?" and "who benefits from this bill? Who
profits?" He spoke of how people will no longer be deported for their
status, only for their crimes; we responded " this bill expands
criminalization", "this bill invents immigration crimes" and I
forget what else -- he moved on before we could write out something like
"crime is your bullshit pretext for arguing that some people are
disposable" and "you use status to illegalize people". It went
on for 40 min. he got mad, and UIC organizers were asking us to put down our
signs because we were disruptive.
Then he lied about the bill in specifics, just flat-out lied about the provisions of the bill - stating that RPI does NOT exclude people based on income levels. At that point we started to shout "that is a lie senator" and corrected him, because it specifically excludes people who earn below the poverty line as is fucking evident to anyone who read the thing. UIC Latino Forum folks came over and threatened to call the police. Durbin lied again and answered a question about DACA by stating it was an executive order, which it is not. We shouted "that is a lie Senator", and again the threats of police, who were "right in the lobby". blah blah blah. People in the room were generally horrified and embarrassed at our behavior. The live stream shows some of this, but of course they do not show what is happening at the back of the room where we are. Only that he is angry, he gets interrupted, and is on the defensive. Check out the livestream at around 6'12" for the RPI thing.http://new.livestream.com/vivelohoy/Enlanoticia/videos/23836837
when a few people raise questions about elected officials lying about public policy and laws; when we criticize militarization and genocide and we insist you cannot casually brush away the deaths on the border, that they matter; when we question who exactly has the right to "bargain" with people's lives and subject millions to systemic surveillance and enforcement, we are somehow inappropriate weirdos, total crazies who get stared at and threatened, and actually get accused by Durbin of wanting undocumented people to suffer (if you criticize this bill it means you don't want things to get better for immigrants is the list of what he said -- fyi Durbin, it is not the first time your reformists accuse us of being anti-immigrant because we are against this bill; but here is a reminder: we're not the ones who require DHS to initiate deportation proceedings against 90% of visa overstayers, that's 40% of the undocumented population; and were not the ones mandating that DHS increase their detention quota by 600 more people EVERY DAY in 2014, we are not the ones expanding deportations and pushing for a national everify system; and we are not the ones pushing 20,000 new troops on the border). It is however perfectly sane and normal and ACCEPTABLE to speak casually about militarization as a given, to use peoples' lives as bargaining chips in political games, to produce legislation that dramatically expands enforcement and criminalization of poor people, and get applauded as champions of immigrant rights. If that is sanity, I am grateful for my craziness and for having a group of fellow crazies to stand with. Here’s to our insanity on the face of their normal, their laws of misery and death.
And as we were leaving, the UIC forum organizers came out to the lobby and approached us -- to assure us in private and in confidence that they themselves had "problems with the bill" but what can you do? We answered hey, tell the facts about the bill and stop tolerating when people lie about it. We gave them our educational materials. Because they are, you know, educators. So they invited us to do a forum there on "our perspective" (which I guess is reading the bill and talking about its actual provisions). This lovely chat happened right as we were standing by the two pigs they called in just for us, for the security threat posed by 4 women and their markers and paper.”
Then he lied about the bill in specifics, just flat-out lied about the provisions of the bill - stating that RPI does NOT exclude people based on income levels. At that point we started to shout "that is a lie senator" and corrected him, because it specifically excludes people who earn below the poverty line as is fucking evident to anyone who read the thing. UIC Latino Forum folks came over and threatened to call the police. Durbin lied again and answered a question about DACA by stating it was an executive order, which it is not. We shouted "that is a lie Senator", and again the threats of police, who were "right in the lobby". blah blah blah. People in the room were generally horrified and embarrassed at our behavior. The live stream shows some of this, but of course they do not show what is happening at the back of the room where we are. Only that he is angry, he gets interrupted, and is on the defensive. Check out the livestream at around 6'12" for the RPI thing.http://new.livestream.com/vivelohoy/Enlanoticia/videos/23836837
when a few people raise questions about elected officials lying about public policy and laws; when we criticize militarization and genocide and we insist you cannot casually brush away the deaths on the border, that they matter; when we question who exactly has the right to "bargain" with people's lives and subject millions to systemic surveillance and enforcement, we are somehow inappropriate weirdos, total crazies who get stared at and threatened, and actually get accused by Durbin of wanting undocumented people to suffer (if you criticize this bill it means you don't want things to get better for immigrants is the list of what he said -- fyi Durbin, it is not the first time your reformists accuse us of being anti-immigrant because we are against this bill; but here is a reminder: we're not the ones who require DHS to initiate deportation proceedings against 90% of visa overstayers, that's 40% of the undocumented population; and were not the ones mandating that DHS increase their detention quota by 600 more people EVERY DAY in 2014, we are not the ones expanding deportations and pushing for a national everify system; and we are not the ones pushing 20,000 new troops on the border). It is however perfectly sane and normal and ACCEPTABLE to speak casually about militarization as a given, to use peoples' lives as bargaining chips in political games, to produce legislation that dramatically expands enforcement and criminalization of poor people, and get applauded as champions of immigrant rights. If that is sanity, I am grateful for my craziness and for having a group of fellow crazies to stand with. Here’s to our insanity on the face of their normal, their laws of misery and death.
And as we were leaving, the UIC forum organizers came out to the lobby and approached us -- to assure us in private and in confidence that they themselves had "problems with the bill" but what can you do? We answered hey, tell the facts about the bill and stop tolerating when people lie about it. We gave them our educational materials. Because they are, you know, educators. So they invited us to do a forum there on "our perspective" (which I guess is reading the bill and talking about its actual provisions). This lovely chat happened right as we were standing by the two pigs they called in just for us, for the security threat posed by 4 women and their markers and paper.”
Some
mainstream media coverage:
WBEZ:
Hoy Newspaper:
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