Fwd: Media Coverage: East Palo Alto Juvenile Ice Holds Town Hall

[Stewart Hyland]

Hello MIH Colleagues,

 

Founding Board member Annie Loya of YUCA, and MIH collaborative partner has posted a report of last night's event. Both Larry and I attended, we were impressed with the turnout estimated between 175-200 persons. Please see Annie's account below - Stewart

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Isabel Annie Loya <an...@youthunited.net>
Date: Thu, Jul 12, 2012 at 12:33 PM
Subject: Media Coverage: East Palo Alto Juvenile Ice Holds Town Hall
To:

Hi!

I thought I'd share the coverage members of the San Mateo County Coalition for Immigrant Rights received last night at the Stop Deporting Youth Juvenile Ice Holds Town Hall at St. Francis Church in East Palo Alto.  Randy Torrijos from Supervisor Pine’s office was in attendance so we hope that he can take this back to Supervisor Pine and communicate how passionate we all feel on the issue. Special shout-out to all the coalition orgs that turned out (YUCA, De-Bug, CLS, ILRC, Stanford Immigrant Rights Clinic, ACLU North Pen, Juvenile Private Defenders, UUSM, PICI, and Nuestra Casa)!!

Here are some of the highlights...

• More than 200+ at the event.  The bulk of folks were from East Palo Alto and Redwood City, but we also had folks from Millbrae, Belmont, and San Mateo who came down.  Many of them were teachers, attorneys, community workers, pastors, and families.
• More than 150 petitions collected urging the Board and Probation Chief to stop referring youth to ICE
• Amazing speakers representing the breadth of support for our work, including:
  
  • testimony from Maria Lopez, a mom from East Palo Alto whose daughter went through an ICE hold in SMC, and successfully beat her deportation charges with the support of CLS and De-Bug
  • EPA City Council Member Carlos Romero
  • EPA Police Chief Ron Davis who reiterated the need for trust between law enforcement and the immigrant community.  He will be writing a letter to Chief Stu Forrest asking him to stop referrals to ICE!
  • Revered Debbie Lee from PICI who came all the way from Oakland
  • Community beacons in our county who have supported immigrant rights such as CLS, Comite de Padres Unidos, De-Bug, St. Francis of Assisi and YUCA
  • Performances by Juan Lopez, Jorge and Xochitl Prado, Lily Campos, and Julio Navarette
    
• Video launch of YUCA’s “Get Arrested, Get Deported” featuring the various voices in the coalition against juvenile ICE holds! We will put a link out soon!
• MC-ing skills of Braulio Gonzalez (YUCA) who kept the energy and spirit up of folks throughout the night (can we say, move over Don Francisco?)
• Very smoothly-run legal consultations organized by Helen Beasley (CLS) with the Bay’s most trusted immigration attorneys.  Huge thank you to CLS attorneys Rosa Gomez, Amalia Greenberg Delgado, Jessica Jenkins; ILRC’s Angie Junck; Stanford Immigrant Rights Clinic Alison Kamhi; and private attorneys Helen Lawrence and Matt Muller.
• Media coverage, including Telemundo, Univision, and East Palo Alto Today. We're also in conversations with NPR’s California Report, San Jose Mercury, Palo Alto Weekly, and Palo Alto Daily to do follow-up stories. De-Bug will also be putting out a media package on a reporting video of the event, photos, and the photo-booth of the “message to the Probation Chief” that we will distribute to national ethnic media.  Here’s links to two of them (including one that Helen from CLS that she Mcgyvered.)
  
  • Telemundo:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5bC3BzTQ3M
  • Univision: http://univision14.univision.com/videos/video/2012-07-11/jovenes-piden-alto-a-las
    
• Cool “Stop Deporting Youth” shirts and stickers (we got more if you want)
• Homemade food and refreshments by YUCA and Comite moms!
  

What this highlighted for me is how our coalition has many moving parts and we all bring so many things to the table that make us strong and unique.  I think we have yet to tap into the deep powers of this coalition, but what we’ve done so far is awesome.  I am excited to see us change history!

-- 
Executive Director
2135 Clarke Ave.
East Palo Alto, CA 94303
(650) 322-9165 o.
(650) 322-1820 f.
www.youthunited.net

--

Cowardice asks the question: Is it safe?

Expediency asks the question: Is it politic?

Vanity asks the question: Is it popular?

But conscience asks the question: Is it right?

And there comes a time one must take a position that is neither safe,

nor politic nor popular—but one must take it simply because it is right.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

 

Stewart Hyland
Making It Happen for Our Children, a new 501(c)(3) 

Serving East Palo Alto and Belle Haven families
East Palo Alto, CA 94303
stewart...@gmail.com