Statement of Solidarity: Our commitment to stand together against the violent, systemic and racist destruction of Black lives
Updates on issues in last month’s newsletter: Investigations of human rights abuses and violence against those detained by ICE in the Bristol County House of Correction; Progress on passing the Work and Family Mobility Act;Ongoing needs in the Matamoros tent camp.
Stop continued family separation and deportation of”unaccompanied”children
Protest proposed new asylum rules which will exclude almost everyone: Public Comment period open until July 15. Submit a comment here!
When you volunteer at the refugee camp in Matamoros, as we did in February, you can’t more than a few feet without running into Tucker’s work. He’s built or rebuilt infrastructure from outdoor sinks on up. He cooks. He’s very active in the medical tent. He helps out at the Resource Center. Plus he’s just a sweet human being. We interacted with him almost every day our delegation was there. But I never learned about his background, and am especially amazed to learn he came out of some really right-wing stuff.
Members of JAIJ join others surrounding a busload of shackled deportees with love, Brownsville-South Padre Airport, Brownsville, Texas, February 14, 2020 (Valentine’s Day). Photo by Shel Horowitz.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is the arm of the federal government that rounds up and deports undocumented immigrants who have done nothing illegal except cross a border (often in fear of their lives–and lately, the government itself violates international law and due process in these raids and deportations).
ICE doesn’t do all of its own dirty work, though. It hires private bus companies and airlines to carry out the deportations.
Jewish Activists for Immigration Justice has written letters to these companies. Our call for them to stop doing this dirty work will be much stronger if you join it. Please modify this letter as you see fit, or send as is.
Here’s how: Below, you’ll find:
Letter to companies that have direct contracts with ICE
Letter to companies who subcontract to those contractors (most of the list)
Contact information for all these companies
Please comment below and tell us how many letters you sent. And if you get responses, it would be great to post them here.
LETTER TO DIRECT CONTRACTORS (Trail Boss and CAC)
I am an immigration justice activist who has learned that you hold one or more contracts with ICE to transport asylum-seekers and detainees being deported.
As COVID-19 ravages detention facilities, jails, nursing homes and schools around the US, we call your attention to the public health crisis you are helping to create. You are placing infected people in close quarters with those who are not infected, thus spreading a deadly disease. You are bringing a highly contagious and often-lethal disease to other countries that are even less prepared to deal with it than the US.
We also point out to you that even before COVID-19, the US government’s policy of denying asylum, or even the right to declare asylum, in almost all cases is a violation of international law. In this new era, you are helping to carry out a death sentence against people who have committed no crime other than to flee for their lives. This ABC News link documents the murder of at least 138 deportees from the US just in one country (El Salvador): https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/report-138-us-el-salvador-killed-68768439 We are sure that you do not want to be complicit in the murder of innocents, or in the spread of new cases of a fatal disease. We ask you to respect the humanity of those who are victimized by your actions, cancel your contracts with CAC/ICE, and cease assisting these unfair and illegal actions. This is a moment when you can shine. We will share your response with our supporters, press contacts, elected officials, and through social media, a much wider public. When you choose to do the right thing, it will be noticed and appreciated, and those messages will go out with our public thanks. We look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
(your name and if you are writing on behalf of a group, your organization)
LETTER TO SUBCONTRACTORS (All the others)
I am an immigration justice activist who has learned that you subcontract to CAC (Classic Air Charter), which holds contracts with ICE to transport asylum-seekers and detainees being deported.
As COVID-19 ravages detention facilities, jails, nursing homes and schools around the US, we call your attention to the public health crisis you are helping to create. You are placing infected people in close quarters with those who are not infected, thus spreading a deadly disease. You are bringing a highly contagious and often-lethal disease to other countries that are even less prepared to deal with it than the US.
Even before COVID-19, the US government’s policy of denying asylum, or even the right to declare asylum, in almost all cases is a violation of international law. In this new era, you are helping to carry out a death sentence against people who have committed no crime other than to flee for their lives. This ABC News link documents the murder of at least 138 deportees from the US just in one country (El Salvador): https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/report-138-us-el-salvador-killed-68768439
We are sure that you do not want to be complicit in the murder of innocents, or in the spread of new cases of a fatal disease. We ask you to respect the humanity of those who are victimized by your actions, cancel your contracts with CAC/ICE, and cease assisting these unfair and illegal actions.
This is a moment when you can shine. We will share your response with our supporters, press contacts, elected officials, and through social media, a much wider public. When you choose to do the right thing, it will be noticed and appreciated, and those messages will go out with our public thanks. We look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
(your name and if you are writing on behalf of a group, your organization)
CONTACT INFORMATION Trail Boss Enterprises (bus company that brings detainees to the planes)—DIRECT contract with ICE: email: trailboss@trailbossinc.com phone: 1(907)-338-8243 address: 201 E. 3rd Avenue, Anchorage AK 99501
Classic Air Charter (CAC)—DIRECT contract with ICE: www.classicaircharters.com phone: 1(321) 684-7014 address: 1811 Riverview Drive, Melbourne, Fl 32901 email: chartersales@codeseven.us Government business contacts: • Daniel Carson, email: dcarson@codeseven.us • Norm MacClean, email: nmacclean@codeseven.us • Anthony Ditzio, email: aditzio@classicaircharters.com
The companies below are subcontractors through CAC Swift Air: Was acquired by iAeroAirways in December 1918. No email address, but a contact form on their website: www.iaeroairways.com/contact/ phone: 1(866)-227-9438 address: 2406 South 24th Street Suite E-101, Phoenix AZ 85034
World Atlantic Airlines: email: through a contact form on their website: www.flywaa.com/#tf-home phone: 1(305)722-6100 address: Corporate: 6355 NW 36th Street, Suite 100, Virginia Gardens FL 33166 mailing address: P.O. Box 660479, Miami Springs, FL 33266
Omni Air: email: through a contact form on their website: www.oia.aero/contact_omniair phone: 1(918)-836-5393 address: 3303 N. Sheridan Road, Hangar 19, Tulsa OK 74115
United Airlines Inc: CEO: Oscar Munoz email through a form on their website: www.united.com/en/us/customerCare phone: 1(800) 864-8331 address: P.O. Box 6649, Chicago IL 60606-0649
American Airlines: CEO: Doug Parker email through a form on their website: www.aa.com/contact/forms phone: 1(800) 433-7300 address: 4000E Sky Harbor Blvd., Phoenix AZ 85034
Delta Airlines: CEO: Ed Bastian contact through online complaint form: www.delta.com/contactus/commentComplaint phone: 1(800) 270-9956 1(800) 221-1212 address: 1030 Delta Boulevard, Atlanta GA 30354
For deportation flights from Brownsville South Padre International Airport: These flights depart from: Hunt PanAm Terminal email: huntpanam@gmail.com phone: 1(800) 888-7524 address: South Padre International Airport 505 Amelia Earhart Drive, Brownsville TX 78521
While many of us adjust to the myriad difficulties of life during the COVID-19 pandemic, roughly 37,000 migrants are trapped like dry timber in US detention centers, where the COVID-19 pandemic will spread imminently like wildfire, causing unnecessary deaths and further strain on our medical system. This story is not making headlines, nor is it being covered on major networks. By design, our government’s mistreatment of asylum seekers is hidden from our sight.
Most of the detainees fled violence in their home countries and have committed no crime. Seeking asylum and receiving due process are legal rights. But the Trump administration has made exercising these rights a crime, leading to mass detention of migrants, funded by our taxes.
Most detention centers are crowded, with no social distancing, nor soap, protective equipment, or testing. Workers in detention centers, and others near these facilities, are also at risk of COVID-19. It is a matter of days before this becomes another preventable COVID-19 tragedy in our country.
Equally distressing are the thousands of asylum seekers stuck on our southern border, living in crowded tent encampments, due to the US government’s Remain in Mexico policy. Their cases are indefinitely postponed. Families are exposed to gang violence, the kind they fled from in their countries of origin- another humanitarian crisis and preventable COVID -19 tragedy on our southern doorstep.
Many organizations and officials, like Raices Texas, Detention Watch Network, ACLU, Amnesty International, Southern Poverty Law Center, Lawyers for Civil Rights, the Hispanic Congressional Caucus, and individual members of Congress, including Congressman Jim McGovern, have called for the immediate release of all migrants in US detention facilities, unless they have a history of violent crimes, to await their asylum hearings safely at home with their families in the US.
Please contact your legislators urging them to demand that ICE enact compassionate release of asylum-seeking detainees immediately, to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in this already traumatized population.
Western MA Jewish Activists for Immigration Justice:
Holly Bishop, Annique Boomsma, Joyce Duncan, Joan Epstein, Dina Friedman, Shel Horowitz, Ellen Kaufman, Alice Levine, Karen Levine, Betty Wolfson and Susie Zeiger.
(Submitted to the Daily Hampshire Gazette, 4/13/20)
Our member Edy was ordered deported March 13, and transferred to Louisiana last Friday for a flight to Guatemala. Now officials say such flights are impossible until the COVID crisis passes, and Edy will remain detained in Louisiana indefinitely.
His wife hasn’t heard from him since last Thursday. Edy is a farmworker, husband, and father of a toddler who has lived in the US on his own since fleeing gangs at age 14. He is ours–we need him here. If he can’t be here, we need him SAFELY FREE from detention.
Like countless others, Edy cannot languish in detention! Join us in calling for Edy’s release–to Guatemala or to his HOME in Springfield!
JOIN US: Virtual Phone Bank for the Work and Family Mobility Act! (MASS. DRIVER’S LICENSE BILL) Monday April 6, 6-8 pm. More information is here: https://www.facebook.com/events/908052409633790/
We are joining Pioneer Valley Workers Center, the Jewish Community of Amherst, Congregation B’nai Israel, and JALSA (Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action) in a virtual phone banking night to continue pushing the state to pass tlegislation, allowing immigrants to apply for Massachusetts licenses. You need a laptop/ipad and a phone.We will gather by Zoom at 6 and make our calling plans. Please join us in sharing our Jewish values for justice in this dark time of COVID.
They come in shackles. They hold their shackled wrists up to
the bus window and blow kisses. We hold hearts and shout, “Lo queremos” (We love you) and
“No estan solos” (You are not alone).But are they alone? Even the one who manages to open the slot at the back
of the bus and poke out his mouth, which must involve a contortion of the neck—difficult
to do with shackled limbs. Isn’t he still alone as he tells us, “Muchas gracias,” the whispered voice
evaporating into the shouts of the crowd. Through the window all you can see
are his teeth.
Through the teeth of the fence, a plane’s engine rumbles.
The people on the buses are about to be loaded into the belly of the plane,
swallowed like Jonah and the whale, then spit out into a country where men have
threatened to kill them, or worse, kill their children. But right now,
everything has stopped. The parking lot’s filled with hearts held and hearts
dropped in the cold, like blood on the concrete. It’s a small moment. Then the bus
engines rumble again. A swarm of police in dark clothing tell us to clear the
way. There’s another stop-moment as we stand by the place where the gate has
opened, staring back into the early dawn bus headlights like dazed deer. My
husband takes my arm. “I’m not ready to stand in front of a bus,” he says, and
the crowd begins to part like the Red Sea. The bus inches toward the belly of
the plane, and I keep thinking, what if this were a train headed for Auschwitz?
Would anyone have been there holding signs along the tracks? Would anyone have
stood in front of the tracks? And would it have mattered? Would those certain
deaths, the Nazis quickly and likely shooting them, have made a difference?
Would they have made our ancestors’ trips to the gas chambers any easier?
The man who talks to the press, Josh Rubin, who spent
hundreds of days witnessing children in cages in Tornillo, Texas and Homestead,
Florida says these are extermination flights. The plane’s belly rumbles. The buses
head through the gate and park behind a building where we can’t see them
through the fence that separates us from the runway. There’s a truck parked in
front of the plane, so we won’t be able to see the shackled people as they
shuffle up the stairs with shackled legs.
A chill has settled over Texas and we shiver, consider going
back to the comfort of our warm cars, our rented rooms. Across the river in
Mexico, thousands of migrants with bright faces are huddling over their small
cook stoves, or shivering in their donated sleeping bags, or looking across the
muddy strip of the Rio Grande at the metal fence, and beyond it a sign that
says, “Welcome to the United States of America.” Only a few will cross, but why
not keep hoping? It’s like playing the lottery. Why not believe for a second,
or a moment, or a lifetime that your story will be the one that softens the
judge’s ears? Just yesterday, we saw someone walk free. That rare
million-dollar moment. When I asked him what happened, he said, they killed my
whole family in Honduras.
A little boy with a torn shirt stands by the steep embankment overlooking the river. A toddler with thick hair and almond-shaped eyes holds her tiny hands over the sanitizer on the dinner line and slowly rubs the cool gel between her fingers as if it’s gold. In the writing workshop that we have offered to twenty families along with bolsitas of rice and beans, a woman asked to write the story of her heart tells me she doesn’t know how to write. Without words, all she has to offer are tears. My compañera, who speaks better Spanish, offers to write for her so she can have a story to hold under her pillow or close to her chest. But what will happen if she, too, ends up in the belly of the plane? Will her words go with her? Will they matter?
We have organized many report-backs on our recent experience witnessing tent courts and deportations, and providing humanitarian aid to asylum-seekers who are being forced to wait for months in crowded and unsafe refugee camps on the Brownsville/Matamoros Border under the controversial MPP (aka Wait in Mexico) Program. Please spread the word and contact us if you’d like a report-back for your group.
Saturday, February 22, 12:30-2 pm, Congregation B’nai Israel, Northampton
Monday, February 24, 7:00 pm, Pathways Co-Housing, Florence
(Sponsored by Indivisible Northampton and Beit Ahavah)
Wednesday March 4, 6:30-8:30 pm,
Forbes Library, Northampton
Friday, March 6, 6-8 pm, Temple Israel, Greenfield.
(Vegetarian potluck co-sponsored by Traprock Peace Center)
Tuesday, March 10, 7 pm, Jewish Community of Amherst,
Monday, March 16, 5:30 pm, First Congregational Church Amherst
(Monthly Sanctuary Potluck with Lucio Perez)
Sunday March 22, 9:30-10:45 am, Northampton Friends Meeting
