Press
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Undocumented youth and allies take a freedom bus ride
August 28, 2012
The Undocubus. Credit: Ruckus Society (LOS ANGELES, CA.) In a previous blog posting, I reported on the growing movement of undocumented youth seeking to assert their rightful place in U.S. society. I was reporting on the advent of an entirely new political subject involving the expression of “undocumented fearlessness” among youth without papers who deliberately had themselves arrested protesting SB1070 against the backdrop of the struggle to end the reign of Sheriff Arpaio and his constant dragnets in the Latina/o community, which are designed to fill the shoddy tents in his desert gulag with the fresh money-making bodies of detainees who are eventually swallowed up by the hidden holds of the private corporate prison and detention industry; these are the same forces that, with the Koch Brothers, are funding the attack on American democracy. This amazing and energetic movement includes many youth who were first brought to the United States as infants and older minors; they are the constituency targeted by President Obama’s recent Executive Order temporarily suspending deportation proceedings against these innocent undocumented children and younger adults.
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Melissa Harris Perry: No Papers No Fear Footsoldiers
August 26, 2012
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Arizona Awaits Next SB 1070 'Papers Please' Ruling, UndocuBus Rallies Undocumented Mothers Across Country
August 23, 2012
Three weeks into their historic "No Papers No Fear Ride for Justice," Phoenix resident Leticia Ramirez carries a message for other undocumented mothers across the United States.
"I am mother and I am undocumented and I am not afraid," Ramirez, a mother of three young children, told me in a phone interview today, as the 30-plus modern-day freedom riders entered Georgia, on the heels of the 11th Circuit Court's strike down of that state's Arizona copycat immigration.
"I have heard so many stories from other mothers," Ramirez said, an 18-year resident of Arizona, who was brought to the United States from Mexico as a child. "They are inspired by our journey, and tell me that they have been inspired to come out of the shadows, and this encourages me to keep going."
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'No papers, no fear': immigrants declare on bus tour - NBCNews.com
August 17, 2012
Bob Miller / for NBC News
Maria Cruz Ramirez, 46, awaits her turn to speak at a press conference near the Nashville Public Library on Thursday. Ramirez came to the U.S. in 2001 with her three children, and they overstayed their Visas.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- They are in the United States illegally, and they are tired of hiding.
Over the past few weeks, a group of nearly 40 housekeepers, day laborers, students and immigration activists has been making its way across the country in a ragtag caravan, chanting “no papers, no fear” and proudly declaring “I’m undocumented” in public gatherings.
The riders are not legally in the U.S., a point they want everyone they meet to know. They are on the bus tour, dubbed the “undocubus,” to highlight their plight and to challenge their anti-immigrant foes in the ongoing national debate on immigration.
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Deferred Action Goes into Effect -NYTimes
August 16, 2012
At least 1.2 million young undocumented immigrants will be able to apply for a temporary stay of deportation and a work permit beginning today.
This is the enactment of a policy President Obama announced back in June and it applies to younger [undocumented] immigrants with no criminal history who were brought to the country as children.
At the time, President Obama said this new policy was simply the "the right thing to do," but that it also helped Immigration and Customs Enforcement focus on deporting criminals. His opponents said that the president had overstepped his authority by issuing the new policy; they said he had enacted his own so-called DREAM Act without the approval of Congress.
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“Undocubus†is riding out of the shadows and towards the Democratic National Convention
August 14, 2012
Winding its way from Arizona through Texas to Mississippi and Memphis the Undocubus, filled with 30 undocumented immigrants, plans to come to a stop in Charlotte, North Carolina just in time for the Democratic National Convention. The participants hope to draw attention to their belief that both Republicans and the Obama administration have failed in addressing the issue of immigration properly.“I don’t want politicians to talk about me,” says Gerardo Torres, a volunteer for Puente Arizona, one of the Undocubus organizers, as well as an undocumented and gay immigrant. “If they’re going to talk about us they should let us speak. The people who are actually affected by these laws and all of the hate and the things they’re doing to our community.”
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Immigrants Halts Deportation After Challenging Border Patrol Arrest
August 12, 2012
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Immigrant Joaquin Navarro-Hernandez, a member of the "Southern 32," triumphed in a Fridayimmigration court hearing, where he halted attempts to deport him by showing inaccuracies in the government's only proof against him. The hearing was held to question the accuracy of an arrest report issued by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents who detained him after a raid on a day-laborer corner in 2010. Immigration Judge Wayne Stogner pointed at an easel-size enlargement of the report, its alleged inaccuracies marked with blue and yellow Post-It notes by Hernandez's lawyers. "I have no confidence that document is reliable," he said, noting that he considered that conclusion "a very serious matter." -
Southern 32 member Joaquin Navarro Hernandez may soon see relief from deportation
August 12, 2012
After more than two-and-a-half years in the local immigration court system, day laborer and Southern 32 memberJoaquin Navarro Hernandez — who was featured prominently in our recent cover story *— seems likely to avoid deportation. In a hearing in New Orleans Immigration Court today, Judge William Wayne Stogner said that the government's primary evidence against Navarro Hernandez, U.S. Border Patrol's I-213 (record of deportable alien) was effectively useless.
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No Papers, No Fear Ride Stops in Mississippi
August 12, 2012
A group of undocumented immigrants is traveling across the nation in hopes of fighting legislation aimed at workers who aren't in the country legally. MPB's Daniel Cherry reports how the group spent the weekend in Mississippi trying to gain support.About 30 immigrants are bussing through Mississippi. They say they have no papers and no fear, and they're headed to the Democratic National Convention. Angel Alvarez moved to the U.S. when he was one year old, and wants to see laws like the one in his home state of Arizona, changed."We're all a community and we're all a part of it and, like me, for example, I've lived here my whole life. This is my country. I don't want to go back. I don't know anything out there so I don't want to go back."Read More » -
The Undocs on the Bus - Dallas Morning News Editorial
August 10, 2012
Those without papers are often described as living in the shadows, a tired phrase that perhaps survives because it very neatly captures the predicament.
If your life is defined in this manner, you can see the world but the world doesn’t see you, or at least doesn’t see you in all your dimensions. A part of our labor market depends on this arrangement, whether we like it or not.
Years ago, a story on one of these shadowy folk created quite a stir in journalistic circles because the subject was named and photographed in a Page One story, when that term meant more than it does today. But that’s not what made news. The furor erupted when immigration authorities, using the information contained in the article, promptly arrested the subject of the profile and journalists and others angrily debated naming those “in the shadows.”
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