Answer to the Question: How do I hook up with the Freedom Riders?
Comite 10 de Marzo
Below is a detalied itinerary of this weekend Freedom Ride. If you
can't start with us, plan to meet us at some point. Take Metra to the
nearest station to one of our stops.
Freedom Ride! Sep 3-6, 2010
This caravan will travel trough different communities surrounding
Chicago. We will hold meetings, discussions, rallies and actions to
confront xenophobic legislations, English-Only ordinances, Secure
Communities, PoliMigra, 287(g) and to push for the passage of the
Dream Act. Join us, or connect with us along the way!
Itinerary and Schedule
Friday September 3rd
3:00 PM: Rally in support of the DREAM Act
•Congresswoman Melissa Bean’s office, 1701 East Woodfield Road,
Schaumburg, IL Suite 200.
6:00 PM – leave Schaumburg and ride to Naperville
7:00-8:00 PM – arrive in Naperville and be received by our friends at
Immigrant Solidarity Dupage. Shelter is graciously provided by St.
Margaret Mary Parish, 1450 Green Trails Dr, Naperville, IL.
8:00-10:00 PM Welcoming Reception from Immigrant Solidarity Dupage
and Dupage Community Leaders
•St. Margaret Mary Parish, 1450 Green Trails Dr, Naperville, IL.
Saturday, Sept. 4
8:00 AM Breakfast at St. Margaret Mary Parish
9:15 AM Depart St. Margaret Mary Parish – ride to Wheaton
10:00 AM Rally: Stop the 150 Deportations weeky in Dupage/
Legalization for All!
•Dupage County Courthouse 421 S. County Farm Rd. Wheaton IL
•1/2 Mile March South on County Farm Rd and East on Roosevelt Rd to
Marianjoy (Franciscan Sisters) Campus for a short vigil
•10:45 Return to Dupage County Courthouse Complex for closing remarks
and distribution of sacked lunches.
11:00AM – assemble caravan and leave for Joliet
3:00 PM rest stop, lunch and discussion on precarious working
conditions in suburban warehousing and logistics industries:
Bolingbrook area (TBA)
6:00 pm meeting and discussion on immigrant rights issues and
Joliet-area activism; dinner with Freedom Riders
•Nuestra Senora de Monte Carmelo Church,
205 East Jackson Street,
Joliet
Sunday September 5th
8:00 am: Breakfast and tabling at the 8:30 mass., Monte Carmelo Church
10:00 AM depart for Homer Glen
noon – 1PM : stop in Homer Glen for rest, discussion of English-Only
ordinances and sidewalk chalking action
•Culver Park on S Parker Rd, Homer Glen
2:30 PM – stop in Blue Island to discuss polimigra issues, rest
rest of Sunday itinerary TBA
Finale: Labor Day, September 6th Chicago IL, Little Village Neighborhood
Objective: Political Rally
General Statement: why an Immigrants Freedom Ride?
A broad strategy called “secure communities” is quickly and quietly
being implemented around the country, promising the efficient
integration of surveillance and policing between local authorities and
ICE. What exactly is being sold to us, wrapped up in the language
“security”, “community”, “efficiency”? What are some of the
consequences of policies that target and criminalize immigrants ? We
have seen a dramatic increase in detention, deportations and family
separations. Even though President Obama has acknowledged that the
immigration system is broken, that it does not realistically address
migration in a globalized economy, his administration has stepped up
its enforcement to unprecedented levels. According to ICE, no
administration in US history has ever forcefully removed more people
from this country. But these effects are not felt only by millions of
immigrants and their families: in the context of increased xenophobia,
we are witnessing the proliferation of policies that virtually
incentivize abusive detentions without probable cause. This is a
fundamental erosion of due process and as such affects us all. And
when local law enforcement officers become de facto border police, our
neighborhoods become de facto border zones: characterized by
surveillance, intolerance, oppression and fear.
The US Government has become the enforcer of a global economy that
pushes much of the world into poverty, while transnational
corporations remain immune from the devastation they have created.
Structural adjustment, increased coercion, domestic military
deployment, increased poverty and precarity, unstable economic and
living conditions, the erosion of every aspect of public life,
environmental devastation: these are some of the costs of an
unsustainable global system, and they are hitting home. A new
nativist wave feeds off our fear and uncertainty, and offers merely a
smokescreen: we are to believe that the root cause of the mess we are
in are immigrants! We are to believe that due process and transparency
make us less safe. We are to live in a state of permanent suspicion
and fear. We are to build border walls within our neighborhoods,
within ourselves; we are to believe that living behind these walls
will make us more “secure”.
But we have seen that in oppressive societies no space is ever safe
for anyone. We know that what we are being offered is the “security”
of a prison world. We will not be fooled by double-talk: by political
maneuvers that use the language of “security” and “community” but
which actually create insecurity, further destabilize the conditions
of people’s lives, and increase conflict and aggression. We refuse to
scapegoat immigrants, to believe in the myth of well-being for some
through the degradation of others. We demand an end to the campaign of
fear, detention and deportation, a moratorium NOW.