We’ve been engaged in a number of immigrant defense and support activities. We need more volunteer help. VOLUNTEER NEEDS: A. Safe Hotels Campaign, B. Rapid Response Team, C. Bond Packets-Release from Detention, D. Court Monitoring, E. Bus Reception, F. Public Actions, G. Sponsor Families, H. Help for ICE Raid Victims, I. Prayer Support. If you can help, please email irtf@irtfcleveland.org .

"Liberty Weeps" featured a Statue of Liberty weeping over a child huddled in a cage. Members of Immigration Working Group CLE passed out flyers asking people to oppose family separation and child detention policies and to abolish ICE.

Priests, nuns, lay Catholics and Newark Cardinal Joseph Tobin gathered outside an ICE office to protest the detention of migrant children and families. Fifty sat down and blocked traffic, risking arrest outside the ICE office and the federal building.

The installation calls into question many of the injustices perpetrated by our immigration system. The Statue of Liberty weeps because children are held in cages, our neighbors and community members are systematically rounded up and jailed, the immigration system favors the wealthy, our doors are being shut to refugees, legal asylum seekers are being forced to wait in Mexico and there is no longer a helping hand for legal immigrants. In response, the Immigration Working Group CLE calls for opposition to the new “public charge” rules, and end to family separation, permanent legal status for DACA and TPS recipients and the abolishment of ICE.

The incentive for the destruction comes from large-scale international meat and soy animal feed companies like JBS and Cargill, and the global brands like Stop & Shop, Costco, McDonald’s, Walmart/Asda, and Sysco that buy from them and sell to the public. It is these companies that are creating the international demand that finances the fires and deforestation.

The labor movement needs to take a stronger stand against agents of Trump's barbarous immigration policies.

The student movement is diverse, accommodating a range of ideologies and tactics. This year it has intensified as wider movements against President Hernández’s attempts to privatize the health and education sectors have grown. Massive street protests have been led by La Plataforma para la Defensa de la Salud y Educación (Platform for the Defense of Health and Education), made up of various unions with more than seventy thousand combined members. Despite attacks by the staunchly pro-regime media, La Plataforma achieved a huge victory in June when Hernández backed down and repealed the law. It was a watershed moment of popular power against a regime that needed to deploy the military, when the police alone could not repress the movement.