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By jwjnational, on December 15th, 2011 
 Today the Department of Homeland Security announced that it is terminating Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s 287(g) agreement and “restricting” his access to the “Secure Communities” program.
This happened hours after the Department of Justice concluded its three year investigation into civil rights abuses caused by the Sheriff. The report from the DOJ does more than just describe Sheriff Arpaio’s reign of terror. It shows that DHS and ICE programs led to this crisis. Now, the White House needs to apply the lessons learned in Maricopa County and end all programs that entangle local police in the business of immigration enforcement.
Today marks a pivotal moment.
PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION TO END S-COMM & 287(g) HERE.
We join with many others in calling for Sheriff Arpaio to resign and be indicted, but the fight we’ve waged together in Arizona has always been bigger than the Sheriff himself. Sheriff Arpaio is the symbol of the disastrous Secure Communities and 287(g) programs.
It’s time to end those as well.
PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION TO END S-COMM & 287(g) HERE.
Countless acts of bravery and solidarity across
Continue reading Victory in Arizona! Now What?
By jwjnational, on December 1st, 2011
 Ever since SB1070 passed in Arizona, Southern states like Alabama have been quick to pass legislation that take the racial profiling bill to the next levels of hate.
At the same time, the Obama administration has announced that Immigration Enforcement’s regional field offices now are empowered to use their discretion with who is or is not deported.
That means that ICE’s Southern Field Director in New Orleans, Scott Sutterfield has a decision to make.
Last August, his office coordinated the violent ambush of thirty workers in New Orleans who had gathered to receive their paychecks. Now, the New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice and community leaders across the South are demanding Mr. Sutterfield attend a town hall meeting on the state of civil rights in the era of Alabama-style hate.
Jobs with Justice has been working on this fight for a long time as a part of the Turning the Tides movement building, and we want to make sure that Sutterfield won’t stand in the way of their civil rights.
You can support their call with three quick steps
1. Watch the video about their case
2. Continue reading Tell ICE’s Southern Office: Respect the Civil Rights of Immigrant Workers!
By Huy Ong, on October 18th, 2011
Tonight, Tuesday Oct. 18th, PBS will be airing a ground breaking documentary on PBS, Lost in Detention.  Join us as we live twitter chat with the National Day Labor Organizing Network and Detention Watch Network using the hastag #altopolimigra.
Building upon the hard work we all have done together in the past year to expose the dangers of police/ICE collaborations, Lost in Detention’s debut will be a critical moment in swaying the hearts and minds against criminalization and towards human rights.
Click here for more info on Lost in Detention and to find your local listing.
And join the conversation at #altopolimigra Tuesday at 9:00pm Eastern.
Also, check out Detention Watch Network amazing new short video to call for an end to mandatory detention with their launch of their Dignity, Not Detention Campaign.
By Efrain Trujillo, Jr, on September 30th, 2011
In a unanimous vote, the Board of Governors For Higher Education of Rhode Island extended in-state tuition rates for residents to attend public colleges and universities in Rhode Island, regardless of their legal status. To benefit from this decision, residents must meet the following:
1) Attended high school in Rhode Island for at least 3 years
2) Graduated from a Rhode Island high school or received an equivalent degree
3) Will seek legal status in the US as soon as she or he is eligible
This change in policy means that higher education will be attainable to more undocumented students; for example, attending the University of Rhode Island will annually cost $9,824 compared to $25,912 for out-of-state students.
Juliana Romero, co-founder and active member of IDEAS for New England, one of the organizations that advocated for this policy change, commented, “Nothing is impossible! We fought for our dream to go to school! At the end of the day we all stood together, got hit with some haters (specifically ignorance and racism), but we won so it was worth it! Always have faith.”
Allowing Rhode Islanders to pay in-state tuition promotes equity in access to public higher education for talented, high-achieving
Continue reading Rhode Island Passes In-state Tuition for Undocumented Students
By jwjnational, on September 14th, 2011
Today, in cities across the U.S., communities are coming together to stop H.R. 2164, legislation presented by Texas Congressman Lamar Smith. H.R. 2164 would make it mandatory for nearly every employer in the U.S. to use a computer program to access an error-prone government database to verify whether or not a job applicant is eligible to work before any worker could start a new job through a process known as “e-verify.” This legislation is expected to be taken up by the House Judiciary committee for markup tomorrow.
E-Verify will hurt all businesses and the fragile economy, and will leave workers more vulnerable to abuse on the job by giving unscrupulous employers yet another tool to use against workers who try to stand up for their rights.
TAKE ACTION NOW! Tell Congress to Stop E-Verify
E-Verify will place a significant burden on small businesses, raising their costs even as they are struggling in this economy. Almost every business—no matter how small—will be forced to implement this complicated system. The estimated cost to small businesses is $2.6 billion, according to Bloomberg News.
E-Verify has been found to erroneously identify
Continue reading Tell Congress: No More Red Tape! Stop Job-Killing E-Verify Legislation
By jwjnational, on August 16th, 2011
 Today, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and others including Jobs with Justice made public an authoritative report condemning the Secure Communities deportation program and recommending its termination.
The report includes testimony from former District Attorney of New York Robert Morgenthau, heads of law enforcement, and victims of Secure Communities like Isaura in Los Angeles whose 911 call for help resulted in her deportation proceedings.
In contrast to the DHS appointed taskforce which has failed to enlist the voices of affected communities, scholars, or critics on the subject, this report constitutes a real deliberative and representative review of the program.
The report recommends that the Secure Communities be terminated, that the current OIG investigation of S-Comm be expanded to all ICE Access programs, that the Department of Justice begin its own investigation into the mysterious role of the FBI in Secure Communities, and that states not be compelled to share biometric data with ICE.
The following statement can be attributed to the National Community Advisory Commission
“This report confirms what immigrant communities have long known.
Continue reading Authoritative National Report Condemns Secure Communities Program
By Tiffany Gonzales, on June 30th, 2011
Over 400 immigration activists met May 26-28 in Arlington, Virginia, for the Turning the Tide National Summit hosted by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and supported by National Jobs with Justice. The summit focused on how communities can and are pushing back against the program known as “Secure Communities”*. This program allows for collaboration between local police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The program actually makes communities less safe as they fear being reported to ICE if they seek out help from police officers, and it means that folks can be detained or deported if they come into police custody for even minor violations.
It is clear we are at a time when attacks on labor and immigrants is extremely high and the need for these movements to have a united front is critical. One strategy session focused on the work being done in Georgia in response to the passage of HB87 (an Arizona copycat bill). This legislation which is set to go into effect on July 1, is already having an impact in the way of labor shortages. Amid all of this, there has been little discussion about how to make work more available with fair wages
Continue reading Keeping the Energy Alive… and Turning the Tide
In the fight for workers’ right to organize in America, a 19-year-old migrant construction worker is on the front lines.
Josue Diaz is a member of the Congress of Day Laborers in New Orleans. After Hurricane Ike struck the Gulf Coast, Josue was taken to Texas to do treacherous clean-up work. He gutted houses, removing toxic sludge with his bare hands. His work allowed families to come home.
Josue was denied the masks and respirators given to the American workers on the site. He was refused breaks, worked to exhaustion, and forced to sleep in a makeshift labor camp. In response, Josue acted in the proudest tradition of labor leaders in America: he led workers in a strike to demand their dignified working conditions. The employer’s response was to fire Josue and his fellow workers and evict them in the middle of the night without pay.
Retaliatory firings are illegal under the National Labor Relations Act. Josue should have been able to go to government agencies to report the abuse. Instead, he was greeted outside by police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. They detained Josue, and disappeared with him into the vast darkness of the post-hurricane landscape. He
Continue reading News From the Front: The POWER Act
By Sarahi Uribe, on May 19th, 2011
 Cross-posted from the National Day Laborer Organizing Network
Its time to put S-Comm on ice.
For Norma, for Isaura, for Maria, for all the survivors of domestic violence and innocent people swept up in this dragnet, it’s time for a freeze on the flawed and failed so-called “Secure Communities” mass deportation program.
Last year NDLON started to expose the damages and the dishonesty of s-comm. People didn’t believe it was shakeable but now the program is facing an investigation and coming under fire.
Just yesterday the LA Times and Huffington Post broke a new story. A contractor responsible for much of the program’s expansion spoke out and indicated a cover-up from the top on down.
He said in a letter to Congresswoman Lofgren, “I believe key elements in the ICE correspondence [to you] are inaccurate and misleading… ICE painted itself into a corner and needed someone to blame.”
Even before he came out, the Governor of Illinois already decided to pull his state out of the program because of the damage it caused and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus has called on President Obama to freeze the
Continue reading It’s Time.
By jwjnational, on May 10th, 2011
Every year, thousands of workers come to the United States via the H-2B guestworker visa program. Under this program, a workers’ visa is tied to his or her employer, giving their bosses a great deal of control over their lives. All too often, workers in the US on the H-2B visa find themselves in unfair, unsafe, or even illegal work situations, but because their immigration status is tied to their employer, it is very difficult to organize for better working conditions. You may remember the story of Hilario Jimenez, a guestworker who escaped company housing to expose his employers for using taxpayer money to exploit migrant workers while excluding local workers from jobs.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. On March 17, 2011, the National Guestworker Alliance won a major victory and a vindication of five years of organizing, advocacy, and litigation as the Department of Labor (DOL) proposed new regulations of the H-2B non-agricultural visa program. The proposed regulations would ensure that workers in the U.S. through this program are not trapped in debt to recruiters and do not face retaliation for organizing to become members of workers’ centers or unions. The new regulations would
Continue reading Support Collective Bargaining Rights for ALL workers
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Support Collective Bargaining Rights for ALL workers
Every year, thousands of workers come to the United States via the H-2B guestworker visa program. Under this program, a workers’ visa is tied to his or her employer, giving their bosses a great deal of control over their lives. All too often, workers in the US on the H-2B visa find themselves in unfair, unsafe, or even illegal work situations, but because their immigration status is tied to their employer, it is very difficult to organize for better working conditions. You may remember the story of Hilario Jimenez, a guestworker who escaped company housing to expose his employers for using taxpayer money to exploit migrant workers while excluding local workers from jobs.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. On March 17, 2011, the National Guestworker Alliance won a major victory and a vindication of five years of organizing, advocacy, and litigation as the Department of Labor (DOL) proposed new regulations of the H-2B non-agricultural visa program. The proposed regulations would ensure that workers in the U.S. through this program are not trapped in debt to recruiters and do not face retaliation for organizing to become members of workers’ centers or unions. The new regulations would
Continue reading Support Collective Bargaining Rights for ALL workers