UNITE HERE holds week of action to support immigrant workers

UNITE HERE announced that during the week of March 5-9 the union will launch a series of actions to support immigrant workers in danger of having their DACA or TPS protections revoked.

“With the fates of hundreds of thousands of DACA and TPS holders remaining uncertain, . . . UNITE HERE is running major internal member education campaigns for DACA holders and is organizing externally against Trump’s racist immigration policies,” said the union in a statement about this week’s activities.

DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, is an executive order issued by President Obama. It allows immigrants who came to the US as children with their parents to work, study, and live without fear of deportation.

Last year, President Trump revoked DACA, and March 5 was supposed to be the day that DACA protections expired, but President’s Trump’s revocation has been suspended while courts review his action.

More than 800,000 people who have lived in the US most of their lives are protected by DACA.

“America has been my home since I immigrated here at 12 years ago,” said Celica Valdez, a UNITE HERE member from Monterey, California. “DACA allowed me to come out of the shadows and provide for my family. I’m a single mother, and my family depends on my union job as a hotel worker at Hyatt. If Trump wins with taking away my work authorization, my family would be destroyed.”

TPS, or Temporary Protected Status, has been in effect since 1990. It gives protected status to immigrants fleeing political violence, repression, war, or natural disasters.

It has allowed more than 300,000 immigrants who can’t live in safety in their own countries to do so in the US.

During the Trump administration 250,000 immigrant workers with TPS status from El Salvador, Haiti, and Nicaragua have had their TPS terminated and been ordered to leave the US by 2019.

UNITE HERE has 270,000 members, many of whom work in the hospitality industry. According to the union, tens of thousands of our members are immigrant workers, some of whom are affected by President Trump’s DACA and TPS decisions.

UNITE HERE on March 5 began its week of mobilization in Washington DC by joining SEIU, another union with a large contingent of immigrant members, in supporting immigrant rights activists, who demonstrated near the Capitol to demand that DACA protections be extended.

At the Capitol complex, 87 people were arrested for committing non-violent acts of civil disobedience.

The next day, UNITE HERE Local 23 members in Indianapolis, Indiana joined a demonstration in downtown Indianapolis demanding that the state’s two US senators–Joe Donnelly and Todd Young–support legislation that would make  DACA permanent.

The demonstration was organized by Faith in Indiana, a faith community action group that advocates for economic and racial justice

Speaking to the demonstrators, Rev. Steve Carlsen, dean of Christ Church Cathedral, an Indianapolis Episcopalian church, criticized Indiana’s two US senators, Joe Donnelly and Sen. Todd Hunter, for voting in favor of a budget that continues to fund the government’s “massive deportation machine.”

Demonstrators locked arms and formed a human chain through downtown Indianapolis connecting the local offices of Sen. Donnelly and Sen. Young.

Twenty-three people, including at least one member of Local 23, were arrested when they refused police orders to disperse.

In Honolulu, UNITE HERE Local 5 got  an early start on the union’s week of action by holding an immigrant citizenship application fair on March 3 and 4.

The union trained 150 union and community volunteers to help eligible immigrants to apply for citizenship.

“The historic citizenship action is one of the largest in UNITE HERE international’s history, and resulted in 10 times the citizenship applications than the next largest citizenship fair in Hawaii’s history,” reported the union.

 

UNITE HERE said that it plans other action this week.

UNITE HERE members will be lobbying Congress to support proposals that will extend DACA and TPS protections denied by the Trump administration and will be conducting internal organizing forums to educate members about the current status of DACA and TPS.

“This week will also see UNITE HERE affiliates in swing states such as Pennsylvania and Nevada and as far flung as Indiana to New Jersey mobilizing in-state for a range of activities,” said the union.

Unions urge support for DACA as Trump considers ending it

As reports surfaced that President Trump is planning to upend the lives of hundreds of thousands of immigrants by terminating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) executive order, two unions issued statements expressing outrage at Trump’s pending decision.

President Obama in 2012 issued an executive order, DACA, that created a way for people who immigrated to the US as children with their parents but lack official immigration documents to work, study, and live without fear of deportation.

More than 780,000 people have taken advantage of DACA since then.

Their jobs, their studies, their livelihoods, and their futures all are now at stake.

“Ending DACA would crush the hopes and dreams of nearly 800,000 young people who today are able to live here lawfully, go to school, work, and plan for their future. Suddenly, they would become deportable to lands they may barely remember,” said Rocio Sáenz international executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). “This is a cruel and counterproductive move driven by a hateful, anti-immigrant, and white supremacist agenda.”

“At a time when the words and actions of this administration have encouraged white supremacists and others who foment racial hatred and division, targeting these law abiding young people who work, study, and have become valuable members of our diverse nation, would send a dreadful message to our nation,” said Deborah Burger, co-chair of National Nurses United (NNU).

President Trump’s imminent decision to overturn DACA comes as a result of a September 5 deadline imposed on him by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and 9 other Republican state attorneys generals.

Back in June, Paxton and the other attorneys general sent a letter to US Attorney General Jeff Sessions informing him that they would file a lawsuit to overturn DACA unless President Trump terminates it by September 5.

Filing the suit would temporarily suspend DACA until a court rules on it.

Hundreds of thousands of people who came to the US as children with their parents have used DACA to build lives and contribute to the well being of their communities.

Sáenz said that the fact that many of these hard working people could be harassed and deported is a personal issue for him and other SEIU members.

“Many of our friends and family members are today able to live, work and contribute to our country because of DACA,” said Sáenz. “Together, we stand united in the face of white supremacy and hateful attacks against our communities and vow to stand up against Trump’s racist mass deportation efforts and fight for social, economic and racial justice.”

Burger said that rescinding DACA would intensify the wounds of racism inflamed by the recent events in Charlottesville.

“After Charlottesville, the message of terminating DACA could not be worse,” said Burger. “Millions of families in our nation have already been traumatized by the escalation of deportations of peaceful, law abiding undocumented immigrants. We see more and more people, who work and pay taxes, fearful of getting the health care they need when they are sick, or interacting with other components of civil society. That is wrong and immoral.”

Burger said that instead of threatening those who have benefited from DACA, Trump should work for “a comprehensive federal program of humane immigration reform, premised on a path to citizenship for those without violent criminal records who reside in the US, and an end to arbitrary raids and deportations of non-violent immigrants.”

Unions in Texas have also joined in the fight to save DACA.

On August 15, demonstrators gathered in front of Paxton’s office at the state capital complex in Austin to protest his threat to sue the government in order to end DACA.

Six of the protesters conducted a sit-in at the office and were arrested.

Those arrested included Ken Zarifis, president of Education Austin (the Austin teachers union), Montserrat Garibay, vice president of Education Austin, and Patrick Harvey of the Texas State Teachers Association.

“Educators deal with so many students, some who are documented, some who are undocumented,” said Zarifis to the Austin American Statesman explaining why union educators were supporting DACA. “A lot of kids need support, and many of them need DACA. That program is the way to help kids, not to tear it away. Educators need to stand up and say so.”