Support Don't Deport Collective: A collective of system-impacted leaders narrative shifting as they are facing deportation. The collective serves as a network for sharing tools, building capacity and  power through supporting one another's deportation defense storytelling campaigns. We center the leadership of immigrant people with convictions and experiences in the double punishment system so that we can deconstruct good and bad narratives.

#KeepAleFree #KeepSithyHome #LiberateMario #BertoLibre

EPISODE Background

On March 1st, 2023, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will commemorate its 20th anniversary since its operations began. An agency created in haste to advance the United States’ “War on Terror”, DHS has targeted immigrants, Muslims, and communities of color through surveillance, detention, torture, military occupation, and draconian immigration laws. As a result, the Defund Hate and Communities Not Cages Campaigns want to use the anniversary to highlight the extensive and well-documented history of harm from DHS against our communities through field actions across the country. We aim to pressure the Biden administration to take action by defunding ICE and CBP and taking immediate steps to close down ICE immigration facilities.

NATIONAL Demands

NATIONAL Targets

COLLECTIVE Goals

Support, Don’t Deport is a deportation defense podcast where I sit with organizers and activists around the country facing and FIGHTINg deportation and la migra. Together, we deconstruct criminalization, the incarceration to deportation pipeline, and re-define justice and what thriving communities look like.

✅ Submit a letter to Gov @GavinNewsom bit.ly/Letter-KeepSithyHome

✅ Help us spread the word! bit.ly/sithytoolkit

¡El episodio 4 es un episodio especial! #MeltICEMondays: Lunes son para destrozar a La Migra y sus deportaciones.

Me senté con Maxima Guerrero, activista y organizadora en Phx, AZ. Máxima ha estado abogando por los derechos de los inmigrantes desde joven y su experiencia la llevó a tener una experiencia muy personal que es la deportación. Sabemos que ni los soñadores están a salvo de la deportación, mucho menos los que están apoyando luchas contra violencia policial, como Máxima.

En este episodio pude sentarme con máxima y escuchar sobre ella, de su vida. Máxima, fue una de las organizadoras que luchó mucho mucho contra ARPAIo y sus edades. Y ahora con un diferente alguacil, todavía hay amenaza a personas sin el estatus migratorio necesario para que no sean etiquetados para la deportación y encarcelamiento. Maxima fue unas de las mas de 100 protectores o activistas que fueron arrestados cuando empezarons las protestas hace un ano por el asesinato de George Floyd en las calles de phx, especificamente. Ella nos cuenta todo lo que ella aprendido hasta hoy dia--- que es lo que la ha empoderado a seguir luchando contra el estado. Únete a una conversación sobre la lucha de las vidas negras importan que también es lucha de nosotros, lucha e inmigrantes, de gente el sur global. Hablamos de fondo de como LA policia y ICE todavia colaboran para atrapar a nuestros sere queridos.

Hablamos de que es la criminalización y cómo se combate. Escuchamos de herramientas que ella comparte y tenemos una conversación de las acciones y estrategias para quitarle el poder y el dinero al estado y más importante la policía.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/inicio/2020/09/08/maxima-guerrero-arrestada-ice-protesta-george-floyd/5751146002/

https://www.univision.com/local/arizona-ktvw/inmigrantes-corren-peligro-de-deportacion-tras-ser-arrestados-en-protestas-video

https://masslibaz.org/

https://puenteaz.org/

https://www.poderinaction.org/

https://www.luchaaz.org/

#meltICEmondays brings you Episode #3 “Bitch, I was held for ransom”

***explicit language vibez and trigger warning for police violence and state sanctioned trauma

Berto who uses @coutureclubkid on IG  IS AN ORGANIZER BAD BITCH. Y'all gonna have fun during this episode ! She organizes at college campus (started an undocumented advocates collective at UAC), w/ @ciyja and IE migrant abolitionist. LES LEARN FROM THIS UNAPOLOGETIC FEMME. Join me @claudiarising as we sit with Berto to hear how they got into Deportation proceedings. She explicitly tells us how la migra was haunting him and we get all the details! This interview was recorded one year ago exactly in LA and Berto had been placed in deportation proceedings a year prior.

We are excited to keep up and support His fight against deportation!!! Special thanks to Azul verde for helping that day in the studio !#MeltICEmondays #supportdontdeport #chingalamigra

“Immigration detention was the most painful, desperate, and dark period in my life,” Berto Hernandez, a 32-year-old who lives in California, told Teen Vogue, describing bad conditions and treatment and saying their queer identity played a factor. On one particularly bad day in detention, Hernandez remembers, “having this anguish and overwhelming sadness because I could no longer bear to be in ICE custody.… My humanity was reduced to a case number.”

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/migrant-protest-white-house-end-ice-detention-free-them-all

https://transgenderlawcenter.org/about#mission-vision

https://transgenderlawcenter.org/programs/blmp

Recorded back in 2019 in Pasadena California And MARIO IS STILL IN DEPORTATION PROCEEDINGS!!! He has had NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE.

I sat down to hear Mario Perez's story, and one of the organizers, Janneya Dunlap, supporting him, and I learned so much! Mario has been defending his dignity not only infront of judges, but infront of community members who don't quite understand how immigration laws criminalize people. Mario knows about the good vs bad narrative too well.

We hear about the struggles in the Inland Empire and how communities there are facing deportation even as dreamers, how they are organizing and strategizing to win cases and building power by centering the leadership of formerly incarcerated people facing deportation. We talk about ICE's landscape and how law enforcement agencies and tactics work to make it extremely difficult for people to win their cases or get out of deportation proceedings. 

There is no “rehabilitation” available that can help him, it doesn't matter. The "double punishment weighs heavy" Mario shared with us. People w/ convictions who are not U.S citizens have to fight extra hard to move on in their lives. Mario speaks to us about the strategies they are focused on in order to keep him safe from deportation, even as the STATE has him under surveillance. Mario is one of thousands who check in constantly through a phone app with a case manager and he has a Deportation Officer. 

Mario and Janneya also shared about the joy they both get from pushing back at harmful narratives about what cages should be abolished and what “good immigrants” should be advocated for. Join me as we hear directly from activists and organizers sharing resources and trainings on how to talk about la migra, how to spot them and how to organize yourself.

visit keepalefree.org

Trauma is natural, animals can process it so well and we as humans, we were also built for that. But we have built such an unnatural world. Prisons, deportation, poverty, white supremacy...you name it.

What's NOT natural is man made cages and racist laws. It's also NOT natural that we cant process out of our bodies. GOOD NEWS, practices like this can help us feel more than just pain, they help us stay present, build resilience to manage trauma and traumatic events. It is possible to rewire our brain after severe trauma but it takes a lot of time, patience, and intentionality and access to resources and community care.

“Collective trauma is trauma that happens to large groups of individuals and can be transmitted trans-generationally and across communities.  War, genocide, slavery, terrorism, and natural disasters can cause collective trauma, which can  be further defined as historical, ancestral, or cultural.

Some of the symptoms of collective trauma include rage, depression, denial, survivor guilt and internalized oppression, as well as physiological changes in the brain and body which can bring on chronic disease. International relations are affected by collective and historical trauma as nations and peoples carry the weight of their own historical trauma with them as they wage war against each other.”

you can support Claudia's healing from deportation directly @claudiarising on VENMO

Episode #1

On this episode I wanted to talk to folks on the ground in LA because of the history of collaborations by local law enforcement and immigration enforcement entities that work together to terrorize, incarcerate, and deport undocumented communities even in such a “progressive” state. Claudia Rueda and Marcela Hernandez have been organizing since they were teens and because of their lived experiences they were naturally going to resist when Claudia’s mom, Teresa and many other community members, were picked up by ICE during a routine racist JOINT TASK FORCE Raid.

Here in AZ we are way too familiar with ICE and police working together and transferring folks from cages. So I wanted to learn from them and how they challenged the fear tactics by ICE and POLICE, political repression and retaliation. We will go over the organizing strategies against this systemic oppression in the LA community like lawsuits, legislation advocacy, storytelling and healing from trauma.

you can support Claudia's healing from deportation directly @claudiarising on VENMO

Related articles:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-15/comprehensive-immigration-reform-is-likely-dead-so-what-happens-next

https://knock-la.com/im-still-not-free-claudia-rueda-takes-dhs-to-court-436c7222c626/

https://csulauniversitytimes.com/when-activists-fight-becomes-personal/#modal-photo

https://www.kpbs.org/news/2017/jun/09/sd-immigrant-activist/

https://www.utla.net/news/telemundo-48-free-claudia-rueda-rally

 Support, Don’t Deport is a deportation defense podcast where I sit with organizers and activists around the country facing and FIGHTINg deportation. Together, we deconstruct criminalization, the incarceration to deportation pipeline, and re-define justice and what thriving communities look like.

Thank you for listening to my story. TODAY I WANT TO TALK ABOUT WHY THIS PODCAST, WHY ME, why now?

Truth is, it's been a long process. Fighting an immigration case publicly is aaaa lot. But I'm also one of the lucky ones in a strange way. I didn't grow up with my immigration status on my mind. Even though I come from a mixed status family, most of us have legalization and some economic stability. This is important because all those things are important when you're trying to fight your case and overall survive in this country. The government makes it really tough, expensive and it takes a toll on our well being and mental health.

Before I went to jail for my immigration status, I had been criminalized for being who I am, for liking what I like, for looking like I do. I didn't know that who I was, would make me a  target to la poli-migra……….. I quickly learned a lot.It’s crucial that we think about immigration enforcement as part of the broader trend of criminalization—this allows us to get closer to the root cause of the harm that immigration authorities bring to immigrant communities, and to see the connections between struggles that are shared by criminalized citizens and non-citizens alike.

resources:

Elloy immigration prison

https://advancementproject.org/resources/the-carceral-state-of-arizona-the-human-cost-of-being-confined/

Alejandra's Tree link

https://linktr.ee/Alepablos713

Articles:

Fierce Mitu: https://fierce.wearemitu.com/things-that-matter/immigrant-rights-organizer-alejandra-pablos-detained-ice/

Cronkite News: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA0bCtEKfss

Democracy Now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42tLr6S0In4

Film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T2Dz2wZU_U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07iOnZgXDq8&t=62s