Changing the things we cannot accept.

“I’m no longer accepting the things I cannot change… I’m changing the things I cannot accept.” - Angela Davis

The current federal administration immigration’s policies are abysmal - deplete of human dignity, constitutional rights, and compassion. While Centro Legal’s Immigration Team works with clients who need high quality legal services, we know that it is not enough to address these grave injustices one case at a time. Rather, we see the immigration system in dire need of systemic change.  Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the crises at detention centers have only skyrocketed. Detainees have detailed the complete lack of healthcare or basic adherence to recommended COVID-19 safety protocols. In fact, COVID-19 has ravaged ICE detention centers across the country. In the Mesa Verde detention facility, 32 out of 70 people tested positive. Seeing this alarming rate of infection, Centro Legal’s Immigration Team got to work right away. One of the many barriers created by ICE is the lack of truth regarding detention center facilities and detainee care. Centro Legal staff began helping coordinate organizing efforts between the detainees at the Mesa Verde Detention Center (Bakersfield) and those in the Yuba County Jail. Staff coordinated calls between leaders in both facilities (both within the same facility and across facilities) and with organizers on the outside. Part of this facilitation process included planning actions/demonstrations, providing assistance and support to their planned actions, coordinating with partner organizations, sending press releases highlighting hunger strikes and detainee demands, and drumming up media attention.  Moreover, Centro Immigration staff have advocated for individual release requests for detainees. These specific requests help give a face to the crisis at hand. We’ve joined several advocacy campaigns highlighting the horrid conditions of the detention centers. Informing the public of the horrors currently happening have been a priority for advocates. This has taken many forms. Centro’s Immigration Team is determined to showcase the reality of terrors experienced by detainees every single day - from a panel series to inform the community of what we’ve seen in detention centers in the last six months, to coordinating protests calling for the shut down of the USCIS Immigration Court, to participating in public acts of civil disobedience. The #FreeThemAll act of civil disobedience, organized by the California Liberation Collective, called on Governor Gavin Newsome to use the power he holds to grant mass clemency and order more earlier releases to reduce the prison population.  Thought it’s difficult to ascertain which effort directly influenced positive results, we are thrilled to report that all the women detainees at the Mesa Verde Detention Center were released in May. They were all involved in the hunger strike.

“I’ve learned a lot from helping organize on the inside (of the detention center). This work is really hard, and it’s nothing compared to what they go through. Seeing their resilience in the face of fascism and oppression has been incredibly inspiring.”  -Priya Arvind Patel, Centro Legal de la Raza Immigration Attorney

Pictured: Kern Youth Abolitionists of the Mesa Verde action and Priya Arvind Patel

Separated families. Inhumane living conditions. Toddlers crying for their mothers. Nonconsensual hysterectomies. No dignity, no rights, and little hope.  However, we at Centro Legal de la Raza heed Ms. Davis’s words - we are changing things we cannot accept.  Will you join us in our fight in changing things we cannot accept? The work is enormous, but together - we continue our struggle to #FreeThemAll.

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Centro Legal de la Raza | centrolegal.org

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