ACTS-CNY

Over the past two years, there has been a dramatic increase in the presence and activity of federal agents of the Department of Homeland Security in Central New York-raiding workplaces and detaining people while they shop, pick up their kids, go to church, and do laundry.

As a result, many in our community have: visited immigrants detained in our local county jail and at the federal detainment center in Batavia, New York; helped raise and post bail for detained individuals; helped them connect with loved ones; sought legal counsel on their immigration court cases; traveled with them to immigration court in Buffalo; and offered spiritual and material support to families as they face fears and hardships. Many have worked to educate our community about the complex issue of immigration as well as to preserve the rights of all workers. We have stood in witness at the CNY Regional Transportation Center to call for an end to racial, ethnic, and religious profiling of people seeking to travel.

The Civil Rights for Immigrants Action Team has been building a coalition out of this network of organizations and congregations already active in accompanying immigrant families to seek justice. The Team has sought to learn from and bring together all these advocates.

In the year ahead, the Team will work to build understanding and community across the CNY region’s faith communities and organizations-around our common values of preserving families, raising public safety for all, and fighting for the rights of workers of all backgrounds. We will share our family stories of migration as we demand Comprehensive Immigration Reform that will offer quality job opportunities to all residents of our community-especially those who have been here for generations and seek a fair share.

We want our newly elected City of Syracuse leaders to commit to convening a dialogue that will result in concrete policies that address racial, ethnic, and religious profiling as well as policies that will prevent law enforcement officers from exceeding authority and collaborating with federal authorities on issues of immigration status. We want the Syracuse police to collect data on the background of those arrested for analysis in order to better address this issue.

We want Congressman Dan Maffei to co-sponsor the Child Citizen Protection Act (HR182) that will restore discretion to immigration judges hearing cases of parents of U.S. citizen children, and to fight to keep this provision in any Comprehensive Immigration Reform.

We want to acknowledge U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer for his commitment to introduce a Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill in 2010. We want both our U.S. Senators, who have co-sponsored the Reuniting Families Act (S1085), to continue to fight to preserve and strengthen our current family immigration system, especially for children and spouses of U.S. residents.