We Count! denounces racial profiling by Miami-Dade Police towards latino drivers in Homestead, South Florida. Many Latinos are being stopped by police officers for no reason other than the color of their skin. Some of them are citizens or legal permanent residents. Others are undocumented who end up being deported and separated from their families only for not having a drivers license, all due to ICE’s Secure Communities program.

Documenting these abuses is the first step to stop them!

A petition will be delivered on to the Miami-Dade Police Department asking them to stop racial profiling against Latinos.

December 3rd will be our night, we’re taking Art Basel!

December 3rd, 6PM – 10PM

Collins Park, Miami Beach, FL (map attached)

Check our Facebook event

FLIC is thrilled to be participating in the Public Art Series, at Collins Park in Miami Beach, FL, through the generosity of two Los Angeles-based socially-conscious artists: Olga Koumoundouros and Andrea Bowers. Olga and Andrea will be incorporating our two largest campaigns, “We Are Florida” and “CCA Go Away,” into the outdoor exhibit on the beach.

 Starting tonight, November 18^th, until Sunday November 20^th, the Florida Immigrant Coalition (FLIC) will host its sixth annual Congress in Gainesville. More than 200 participants representing grassroots organizations, community groups, immigrant rights advocates, lawyers, unions, faith leaders, students and farm workers, will gather to review their achievements during 2011 and prepare for the challenges 2012 might bring for immigrants in Florida.

Hosted by the Gainesville Interfaith Alliance for Immigrant Justice and the Coalition of Hispanics Integrating Spanish Speakers Through Advocacy and Service (CHISPAS), the 2011 annual membership meeting will swell to record numbers, attracting hundreds of people from throughout the state. The organization most recently earned notoriety for its role in mounting a formidable campaign, during the 2011 legislative session successfully thwarting the governor’s campaign threat of an Arizona immigration copycat bill.

With no staff until 2005, the Florida Immigrant Coalition now has a permanent presence peppered throughout the peninsula in great part due to a solid core of 30 diverse organizations and a talented cohort of full time staff in five different counties.

Florida has the fourth largest immigrant population in the country. Its state coalition has become a reliable and growing mobilization machine, in particular for its reach and depth with the state’s Latino constituencies.

The 6^th Annual Congress will be held at the University of Florida in Gainesville. The Florida New Majority, the Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy and the Florida Asset Building Coalition are expected to participate.

By Jeanette Smith, South Florida Interfaith Worker Justice, Member of Florida Wage Theft Task Force 

Today marks one year since Miami-Dade County publicly declared a Day Against Wage Theft. Wage theft, or the nonpayment of wages earned, affects us all. Families suffer when earnings are too low to meet basic needs. Local businesses and economies are denied vital stimulus that would flow from the additional spending of workers had they been paid their earned salaries. Honest businesses are undermined by unscrupulous competitors who practice wage theft. Government at all levels is affected, as they are denied tax revenues generated by higher earnings and when many working families must resort to public programs to survive.

Last year, our County adopted an unprecedented ordinance to protect workers from wage theft, the first one in Florida and model legislation for many other communities throughout the country. Thanks to it, in only one year the County’s Wage Theft Program collected over $350,000 in unpaid wages through conciliation, and since January, over $415,000 has been awarded to workers through administrative hearings.

The victims of wage theft have ranged from construction workers to teachers to home health care workers and others. Claims have been as low as sixty dollars and as high as thousands of dollars. Mayor Carlos Gimenez recently lauded the program as “an effective tool for promoting economic security and dignity”. With the over one million dollars in claims still pending, it is obvious that wage theft is an epidemic in our community.

Wage theft used to be the crime wave that no one spoke about, but thanks to the County’s Wage Theft Program and to media exposure, public awareness of this odious practice is on the rise. Over 100 workers in Medley recently protested outside the furniture factory where they worked claiming their unpaid salaries. Last Friday, three workers who had been victims of wage theft at a pizzeria in Homestead organized a protest in front of the shop.

Businesses owners have also praised the program with a local arborist, Ron Von Paulus, stating that “It’s hard enough in a tough economy to run a business, but when you have a criminal next to you who isn’t paying his employees, it makes it tough to compete.” Small businesses, the backbone of a solid middle class economy, are particularly hard hit when unscrupulous businesses use wage theft as part of their business model.

Somewhat perplexingly, the Florida Retail Federation (FRF), with the support of Associated Builders and Contractors, pursued a bill during the 2011 legislative session that would have preempted the Miami-Dade wage theft ordinance and prevented any other counties from passing their own ordinances. Fortunately, last year’s bill did not succeed, but, once again, at the urging of the FRF, similar bills were filed last week by two central Florida state legislators, Senator David Simmons and Representative Tom Goodson. The legislators want to prohibit Florida municipalities from “adopting or maintaining” local ordinances that crack down on wage theft.

On November 3, the Board of County Commissioners, wary of another attempt to preempt the local ordinance, unanimously passed two resolutions, one urging the Florida legislature, to oppose any preemption attempts and the other to urge the passage of a statewide wage theft law, because “wage theft is a problem not limited to Miami-Dade County.”

Miami-Dade County should be commended for taking a stand against this egregious practice that undermines not just our county, but also our state. We urge all legislators, specially the Miami-Dade County Delegation, to take a stand against wage theft. Wage theft is bad for business, bad for families, and bad for Florida.

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The Wage Theft Ordinance was first drafted by the Wage Theft Task Force, a group of community organizations, labor unions, immigrant rights groups, faith based organizations, lawyers, and university researchers who recognized the need for action on this growing problem in Miami-Dade County and who worked with the Board of County Commissioners to pass the ordinance, which established the County’s Wage Theft Program in 2010.

Gracias a ti, ¡Shamir está libre!

Balal y Andy siguen detenidos mientras ICE quiere construir otra cárcel de inmigración en el sur de Florida. ¡Sigamos trabajando!

Después de 9 días de detención, Shamir Ali fue puesto en libertad hace no más de dos semanas. ¡Todo esto fue gracias a tu apoyo! En menos de una semana, Presente.org reunió cerca de 4.000 firmas en una petición on-line. FLIC, We Count! y SWER protestaron frente al Centro de Transición de Broward (BTC), los DREAMers organizaron acciones de solidaridad en otras siete ciudades del país, y logramos la atención de los medios nacionales. Gracias a esto, Shamir finalmente regresó a su casa.

La experiencia probablemente se puede describir mejor en palabras de Shamir:

“¡Todavía no lo creo! Todo lo sucedido fue como una montaña rusa psicológica. Primero me negaron la discreción del proceso, pero luego lo aprobaron después de todo la presión en los medios. Fue básicamente gracias al apoyo que he recibido de la gente… ¡Muchas gracias desde el fondo de mi corazón!”

Sin embargo, a pesar del éxito en el caso de Shamir, nuestro trabajo no ha terminado: ICE continúa deteniendo y deportando a gente todos los días. Como si eso no fuera suficiente, quieren construir otra enorme prisión para inmigrantes aquí en el condado de Broward.

Balal Parveez (izquierda), que tiene 22 años y ha estado en los EE.UU. desde que tenía cinco años, lleva 10 meses detenido. La situación de Balal es crítica. Acaba de salir de una cirugía de pecho durante su detención, y está sufriendo de dificultades físicas y emocionales. Juan Rodríguez, lo visitó este fin de semana y esta es su historia. Por favor, firma esta petición para liberar Balal.

Otra historia impresionante es la de Andrew Maytum (derecho), un ciudadano británico, que ha estado en prisión durante 5 meses después de resistirse a varios intentos de deportación. Su esposa es ciudadana estadounidense y tiene una hijastra que actualmente sirve en la Armada de EE.UU. Ayuda a Andy a permanecer con su familia en EE.UU. firmando esta petición.

Estos casos muestran que el presidente Obama no está cumpliendo con sus promesas de hacer que los agentes de ICE usen su discreción para liberar a personas que son baja prioridad. En cambio, la Administración está negociando con Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) y el pueblo de de Southwest Ranches para construir un nuevo centro de detención de inmigrantes. Esto  aumentará la capacidad de ICE para detener a 1.500 inmigrantes más en la Florida!

La oposición entre los residentes está creciendo, pero este es el momento de unirnos como un movimiento pro-inmigrante. Las consecuencias de esta prisión con fines de lucro serán desastrosas para las familias inmigrantes de toda la Florida. Visita nuestro blog y conviértete en fan de nuestra página de Facebook.

¡Mantengamos la presión hasta que no haya más detenciones y deportaciones injustas!

Thanks to you, Shamir is free!

Balaal and Andy are still in Detention, and ICE wants to build a new massive immigration prison in South Florida. We need to keep up the efforts!

After 9 days in detention, Shamir Ali was released no more than two weeks ago. This was all thanks to your support! In less than a week, Presente.org was able to gather close to 4,000 signatures in an on-line petition. FLIC, We Count and SWER protested in front of Broward Transitional Center (BTC), the DREAMers organized solidarity actions in other 7 cities throughout the country, and we got the attention of national media. Thanks to that, Shamir finally returned home!

The experience can probably be described best in Shamir’s words:

“I am still in disbelief! The back and forth was such a psychological roller coaster. They first denied me prosecutorial discretion, but then approved it after all the media attention. Pretty much, it was all the support I received from people… Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart!”

However, despite Shamir’s success, our job here is not complete: ICE continues detaining and deporting people every single day. As if that weren’t enough, they want to build another massive immigration prison right here, in Broward County.

Balal Parveez (pictured left), who is 22 years old and has been in the USA since he was five years old, has been in detention for 10 months. Balal’s situation is critical. He just came out of chest surgery while in detention, and is suffering from physical and emotional hardship. Juan Rodriguez visited him this weekend and this is his story. Please sign this petition to release Balal.

Another riveting story is that of Andrew Maytum (pictured right), a British citizen, who has been in detention for 5 months after resisting deportation attempts several times. His wife is an American citizen and he has a stepdaughter who is currently serving the U.S. Navy. Help Andy stay with his US family by signing this petition.

These cases show that President Obama is not following his promises about making sure ICE is utilizing prosecutorial discretion. Instead, the Administration is negotiating with Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the town of South West Ranches to build a new immigration detention. This will increase ICE’s capacity to detain 1,500 more immigrants in Florida! The opposition among residents is growing, but this is the moment to unify as an immigrant rights movement. The consequences of this for-profit immigration prison will be a disaster for immigrant families all our state. Take a look at our blog and like our Facebook page.

Let’s keep the pressure up, until there are no more unfair detentions and deportations!

Balal Parveez is 22 years old and has been in the USA since he was five years old. After a faulty asylum petition by a lawyer, Balal was the only one of his 9 siblings that wasn’t able to obtain legal residence in the U.S. He is currently detained at Broward Transitional Center in Florida, suffering from physical and emotional hardship.
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By: Juan Rodriguez

I visited Balal this weekend. I was worried, hearing that his depression had worsened again this week and he was losing his appetite completely. It alarmed me because I knew he was being given pain relief injections for his health condition. I awaited the weekend visitation period unsure if I might hear first from a local hospital.

I waited nearly half an hour for the guards to call him into the visitation room (also the cafeteria). As I panicked for Balal, I couldn’t help but immediately also miss my dad, as the fathers our current Administration tries to label as “criminal” squeezed their small kids in their arms with starving adoration.

When Balal was finally escorted into the room, I told myself that I needed to be strong for him… bring him motivation and hope as he carries the burden of the injustice in our community that many could never imagine, and wish never to discover. I gave him a careful hug, keeping in mind the stitches from his recent surgery, and wishing I never had to let him go.

“It’s been 10 months Juan”, he tells me, looking down into his palms.

“They put Britto paintings on the walls here to try to make the place seem nice, but you can’t fool a person that knows they are trapped inside a jail, for no reason. I’ve never done anything wrong to anybody.”

“What kills you is the time… stretching deeper and deeper into an abyss of uncertainty. You start forgetting how to recognize happiness and feel like you’re going brain-dead. I was studying for my degree in biotechnology… and our government keeps me here for a corporate profit, working every day for $1 a day, knowing that won’t even get me a minute of a phone call home nor a cup of coffee.”

I told him about how this past week, his Change.org petition received over 10,000 signatures because others, too, want to end this injustice. He’s grateful to the people helping to share the petition and to his sister who got this campaign going for him: http://www.change.org/petitions/release-dreamer-balal-parveez-to-his-family-and-stop-his-deportation

“My sister and I -we’re fighters. We get it from our mom. Our mom gets so tired but she never stops. Her heart is her power… and she passed that onto us. I wish I could hold them both. I love and miss them so much.”

He also mentions his wife:

“My wife and I both are eager to someday meet our future kids. I want to be strong for them and teach them about the right and beautiful things in this world we all need to fight for. I want them to grow up someday and be able to tell their friends:‘my dad is a good man that has always helped people.‘”

Then visitation period ended.

I gave Balal another careful hug and thought to myself: “Don’t worry Balal. I can’t forget you. You’re family now.”

He raised his eyes at me and showed a glimpse of a weak smile.

I walked outside the detention center and met the wind and warm Florida sunlight striking my face. I daydreamed the day when I’ll be able to drive Balal to the beach to be surrounded by his wife and family; by the thousands that are signing his petition, and those beyond that are connected to his story.

I believe in that day with all my heart. With YOUR help, we can make it happen.

Desde el Centro de Investigación Aplicada:

Más de 5.000 niños cuyos padres han sido detenidos o deportados están languideciendo en hogares alternativos en este momento - enfrentando la amenaza de ser separados permanentemente de sus familias.

El Centro de Investigación Aplicada (ARC, por sus siglas en inglés) acaba de publicar ”Familias destrozadas:La intersección peligrosa entre las Leyes de Inmigración y el Sistema de Bienestar Infantil“, un innovador informe que ofrece los primeros datos nacionales disponibles en el cruce peligroso entre la ley de inmigración y el sistema de bienestar infantil. La investigación de ARC incluye un video conmovedor y un artículo en Colorlines.com que muestran  la historia de una familia que intenta desesperadamente por mantenerse unida.

Estas familias se enfrentan a enormes dificultades para reunificarse, y en muchos casos serán separados de forma permanente. ARC estima que por lo menos 15.000 niños más podrán ser separados de sus familias en los próximos cinco años, si la misma tasa aplica para casos nuevos.

Este es un creciente problema nacional - los niveles históricos de detención y deportación, junto con la falta de una política clara de bienestar infantil, están destrozando familias y poniendo en peligro a los niños que se quedan atrás. Es inaceptable, anti-estadounidense, y una clara señal de que tenemos que revisar nuestras políticas de inmigración.

Un seminario de información pública se llevará a cabo el miércoles 11/10, a las 3 pm ET/12 del medio día PT. Para más información visite www.arc.org/shatteredfamilies.

From the Applied Research Center:

More than 5,000 children whose parents have been either detained or deported are languishing in foster care right now – facing threat of permanent separation from their families.

The Applied Research Center has just released “Shattered Families: The Perilous Intersection of Immigration Enforcement and the Child Welfare System,” a groundbreaking report offering the first national data available on the perilous intersection of immigration enforcement and the child welfare system. ARC’s Investigative Research package includes a poignant video and Colorlines.com articles which bring to life the story of one family trying desperately to stay together.

These families face significant threats to reunification, and in many cases will be permanently separated. ARC projects that at least 15,000 more children will face these threats to reunification in the next five years, if the same rate holds true for new cases.

This is a growing national problem – historic levels of detention and deportation, combined with a lack of clear child welfare policy is shattering families and endangering the children left behind. It’s unacceptable, un-American, and a clear sign that we need to revisit our immigration policies.

A public informational webinar will be held on Wednesday, 11/10, at 3pmET/12noonPT. For more information visit arc.org/shatteredfamilies.

Shamir es un joven de la Florida elegible para el DREAM Act y miembro de Estudiantes de Trabajo por la Igualdad de Derechos, que se encuentra detenido en el Centro de Transición de Broward desde la semana pasada y pronto será deportado.

Originario de Bangladesh, Shamir vino a este país con su madre cuando sólo tenía 7 años de edad. Su madre fue deportada hace tres años, después de ser víctima de un accidente automovilístico, y desde entonces tuvo que cuidar de sí mismo. Shamir logró estudiar por más de un año en el Palm Beach State College, pero tuvo que dejar sus estudios para ganarse la vida.

El miércoles pasado Shamir fue detenido por inmigración en una redada. Su situación es grave debido a una orden de deportación anterior activada cuando a su madre le negaron la petición de asilo.

Otra promesa incumplida por la Administración de Obama

Al ser Shamir un estudiante elegible para el DREAM Act que no tiene antecedentes penales, FLIC y SWER solicitaron a ICE ejecutar su autoridad de discreción y dejarlo libre. No fue sorprendente, pero ciertamente indignante, que Marc Moore, el director de la oficina de ICE en Miami negara nuestra solicitud para que Shamir pudiera permanecer en los EE.UU.

La acción de Moore va en contra de la promesa del presidente Obama de detener la deportación de Soñadores (DREAMers). Esto es una bofetada para todos los latinos e inmigrantes en todo el país.

¡Ayúdanos!

Por favor FIRMA y COMPARTE esta petición para detener la deportación de Shamir. Presente.org entregará la petición mañana en la sede del ICE en Washington.

Acompáñanos el martes en una protesta en el Centro de Transición Broward en Pompano Beach. Familias y otros miembros de FLIC realizarán una conferencia de prensa para pedir la liberación de Shamir y compartir las historias de otros detenidos que, al igual que Shamir, no han sido concedidos la autoridad de discreción como prometió Obama. Muchos han sido detenidos durante semanas y meses, sin mayor razón que la de alimentar el negocio de las prisiones privadas.

Mira todos los detalles de la acción de mañana en Facebook. Otras 8 ciudades en todo el país se están uniendo a este día nacional de acción llamado “Otra promesa incumplida. Todos somos Shamir “.