Tag Archives: immigration

Hold onto hope, stand up against hate

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In Kansas, an anti-immigrant terrorist killed one man and shot two others this week. In Florida and in Texas, arsonists burned mosques in January and February. Dozens of Jewish Community Centers have received bomb threats over the past two months, and two Jewish cemeteries have been vandalized in the past week. In each case, people have responded, fighting back against terrorism and hate. We need to acknowledge the hatred and bigotry that exists in our country. We need to name these actions as terrorism. We also need to recognize the responses of Americans rejecting that terrorism. We need to insist that we are the majority, not the haters, not the bigots, not the terrorists. This is our country, and we will not let them take it away. Continue reading

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First, they came for the immigrants

img_2554According to  “a senior Department of Homeland Security official,” there’s no need for immigrants to panic. The new policies announced Tuesday are really “not intended to produce mass roundups, mass deportations,” mainly because “We do not have the personnel, time or resources to go into communities and round up people and do all kinds of mass throwing folks on buses.” The plan, however, is to hire 10,000 more immigration agents so that they can implement new priorities targeting basically every undocumented immigrant. Except for DACA recipients. For the moment – there will be a new memo coming about them.  Continue reading

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From Lynda McDonnell’s A Pilgrim’s Way: Living in our dirt

Now begins the latest chapter in our new President’s dissembling.

Before cheering crowds in Florida last weekend, President Trump declared his resolve to deport “gang members – bad, bad people.” But in the crowded basement of my church in Minneapolis last Sunday, tearful women worried that their children will return to empty apartments, effectively orphaned by our president’s pledge to deport anyone who is in the U.S. without the proper papers except those brought here as children.

Read more from Lynda McDonnell’s A Pilgrim’s Way here. This post re-blogged with permission.

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Three things Trump forgot on Holocaust Remembrance Day

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Anne Frank – by unknown photographer, Collectie Anne Frank Stichting Amsterdam – Website Anne Frank Stichting, Amsterdam, Public Domain

January 27 was International Holocaust Remembrance Day. President Donald Trump marked it with a short statement and a long executive order. He forgot a few things: Continue reading

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Fact check: Trump, terror and refugees

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Photo by Fibonacci Blue. 2017-01-20 This is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License.

Trump justified today’s anti-refugee, anti-immigrant executive order by saying that he’s protecting and defending U.S. citizens from terrorism. His order targets refugees from anywhere in the world and all immigrants and non-immigrant visitors from the predominantly Muslim countries of Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Does he know that the last time a refugee killed someone in the United States in an act of terrorism was in the 1970s? That terrorist was a Cuban refugee. A Christian Cuban refugee. Continue reading

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Vetting the refugees: how it really works

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U.S. government graphic shows nine steps in multi-year vetting process. Click here to view complete graphic. 

St. Patrick’s Catholic parish in Hudson, Wisconsin was asked to help receive five Syrian refugee families, a total of 11 adults and 15 children. Hatemongers stirred up opposition, and the church and community divided. (Read that sad story here, as reported by MPR.) In Hudson, and across the country, hatemongers stir up fear against refugees, saying that the government doesn’t vet their applications well enough. Truth – political refugees get screened by multiple government agencies and Syrian refugees get the most stringent vetting anyone has been able to devise. Here’s how it works. Continue reading

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Sanctuary: What it is, what it isn’t, why it’s important

Refugees welcome

Minnesotans demonstrate in support of refugees – 2015 (Photo by Mary Turck)

UPDATED 1/25/2017  When Donald Trump targeted “sanctuary cities,” threatening to cut off all federal funding, what was he talking about? Turns out – as usual – that the answer is more complex than the sound bite. Here’s a quick primer on sanctuary, both in misnamed “sanctuary cities” and in the real and resurgent sanctuary church movement – and a note on what Trump’s January 25 Executive Order fails to do.  Continue reading

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Mogadishu, Minnesota?

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Riverside towers on West Bank, home to many of Somali Minnesotans, and the planned setting of K’Naan’s HBO television series. 

A planned television series set in Minnesota’s Somali community sparked protests at Saturday’s West Bank block party on September 10. Angry and tired of being characterized as jihadi recruits or recruiters, Minnesota Somali youth protested Somali Canadian rapper K’naan’s television plans when he came to perform. I wasn’t there, so I can’t say who threw what first – but police sprayed some of the crowd with chemical irritants, and arrested a couple of people, including a Muslim woman who is a leader of the Black Liberation Project.

The HBO television series started out as “The Recruiters,” focusing on the Somali community in Minnesota, with the promise that it “will draw open an iron curtain behind which viewers will see the highly impenetrable world of Jihadi recruitment.” That sure plays into stereotypes about Somali youth in Minnesota. Now, the series has been renamed “Mogadishu, Minnesota,” and K’Naan claims that it will “present the true and beautiful side” of Somali immigrants. The protesters weren’t buying the new description. Continue reading

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Catching up on news between elephant fights

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When two elephants fight, the grass gets trampled, says a Swahili proverb, which puts me in mind of the RNC and DNC domination of July news. Despite the elephants, other news is happening to people who, like grass under elephants’ feet, seem barely noticed. If you, like me, feel closer to the grass underfoot than to the elephants in Cleveland and Philadelphia, here’s a quick round-up of some important news items you may have missed. Continue reading

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After the Supreme Court failure on immigration — keep on talking, keep on walking

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Noemi Romero from The Excluded website

Hours after today’s disastrous Supreme Court immigration decision, a website called The Excluded popped up in my Facebook feed. The Excluded faces and stories of longtime U.S. residents who live every day at risk of deportation.

“Noemi Romero, 24, has lived in Arizona practically her whole life. At the age of 21 while she was raided by Sheriff Arpaio’s deputies while working to save money to pay for her DACA application. She can no longer able to apply due to her felony for working.”

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