Action Steps

1. Create a CT Labor Center
2. Pressure CT Legislators to Stop the Raids!

AFL-CIO & “Change to Win” (Labor Federations) are coming together for Immigrant Workers’ Rights

-         Fighting for Better Immigration Bill: More Humane, Family-Oriented

-         Kennedy-McCain Bill: Basically to maintain workers for jobs that Americans don’t want to do (Short-Term Solution)

Need to work on message of Globalization: Driving Down Price to Increase Profits

Why are people leaving where they came from?

-         Address Issues Creating the Problems

-         Beyond Immigration Issues

-         Forcing International Laws to change for U.S. Interests and driving people from the land

Lack of Dialogue – Especially with Immigrant Communities

Unions in U.S. are not connected with Unions Abroad

-         Why Not? - Both are against Free Trade Agreements, have other similarities

-         United Steelworkers: Combined with German & U.K. Unions, and also talking to Latin American & Asian Unions

-         Teamsters: In discussion with Mexican Drivers

“A Bad Bill is worse than No Bill” – General Sentiment among Immigrant Communities as well as Organized Labor

What is the Government’s responsibility toward other nations that it has destroyed through its foreign policy?

-         Farm Bill is Up for Renewal: Needs to be changed, Less Subsidies

o       Foreign Farmers would like to change this bill

o       Farmers are being driven off the land (in U.S. and Abroad)

o       Same Policies to destroy Farming Communities abroad are also destroying local communities

o       Need to Mobilize African-American & Latino Communities

§         Tied to Obesity Epidemic (cheaper prices for processed food at supermarkets)

o       Bio-Energy Policies

§         Even Mexicans saw a 400% increase in price of tortillas!

After Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) – Huge Increase in Mexican Immigrants

-         Destroyed Farmers – drove them from the land

Movement of Labor is Limited, Unlike Movement of Capital

-         Need to increase awareness of Fair Trade & Humane Foreign Policies

Need to start Locally – Through Labor

-         Yale Unions raise standards for the whole community (e.g. Water Works)

-         Need to raise standards for Fair Haven, etc.

-         There was a question about whether “starting locally” will really help? How will it change policy?

Education (JUNTA): Get stories from Immigrants

-         Raise Awareness, Tell Stories

o       Example: “Healthcare for Everyone” CDs – People listen to stories

-         Union 1199: David Koff

o       Doing a Documentary about Immigration Raids in New Haven

Make Statements to Politicians supported by Unions (e.g. Lieberman): Stop the Raids!

During Yale Strike: Strikebreakers eventually joined the picket lines!

-         Unfortunately, strikebreakers did not receive compensation – still there is a need to be fair

-         CT Center for New Economy: Need to Engage Immigrant Communities

Need for Labor Center in New Haven – Currently, no place for grievances to be made

Community Response: Can’t divide recent & older immigrants (or Union vs. Non-Union)

Building Trades Union: Working on Integrating African-Americans

-         Need Critical Mass of African=American union members

-         Expand efforts to include Immigrants

1. Expand “Democracy Works” to be available to more places & more people
   a. Find more funding to pay for expansion  
           - Perhaps, an activity for the Network for Civic Engagement?
   b. Democracy Works: Basically, “Civics 101”, “Know your Rights 101”
           - Teach them to “defend something they already have”
       - JUNTA does their classes in Spanish
   c. Go to places where people already meet (e.g. churches, schools, etc)
2. Promote Parent Engagement in Schools (ConnCAN)
   a. Better Education for children increases their involvement when they become parents.

Disseminating Information/Raising Awareness – Who is our Audience?

-         Schools – Convince Parents that Schools are safe

Examples:

-         Wilbur Cross HS: Spanish-speaking PTA (funded by grant from United Way)

o       Integrated to general PTA after 1 year

o       Lobbied for Children to enter AP/Advanced Classes

-         Hartford PTLI (Parent Training Leadership Institute)

o       Understand Opportunities for Parent Leaders

-         ConnCAN: Parent Engagement (English & Spanish Guides)

“Educate the Educators” – Teachers can intimidate children who don’t understand them

-         Cultural Differences: Looking Adults in the eyes/face can be disrespectful

Educating Kids to (7-8^th grades) to teach their parents that their parents have rights

-         John C. Daniels school

In terms of Finding Access to Tutoring – Find places where parents were already gathering together (eg. Churches, JUNTA)

Need a list of Groups/Places where Immigrants gather

-         Workforce programs – works with Hispanic Pentecostal Ministers Group for recruitment

-         Collective Programs need an Audience

InfoLine (2-1-1) – Has English and Spanish speaking operators

-         Speak with Board of Alderman to create a “New Haven” specific 2-1-1

Layers of Strategy in Civic Engagement

-         Rights and Responsibility to be Civically Engaged

-         Mechanisms to learn – go where they are (often, they can’t come to another meeting), immigrants will generally meet in their own neighborhoods

ConnCAN: Helped motivate parents to Legislative Action

-         “Value Proposition”: Immediate Benefits, Convince them that their participation matters, Be specific and short-term goals – Not vague or long-term

o       Example: Focused on Tutoring – A specific, immediate, attainable goal

-         Invest in Personal Relationships

o       Through Intermediaries: Schools, Faith-based orgs, etc.

-         Participation will still be small

Need for an “Action Team” of dedicated immigrants (e.g. PTLI) – This takes time

Municipal ID Program

-         Participation will be low from undocumented workers

o       Due to Immigration (ICE) Raid?

-         Need for huge Grassroots participation

General Lack of Trust from immigrants in “Civic Engagement”

-         List of Unregistered Voters (from Organized Labor) was passed around (shows low voting participation) – How to reach them?

Springs Learning Center (ESL) at St. Rose of Lima Church

-         Undocumented workers attend, lots of personal relationships

Focus on Legal Immigrants instead? – Lots of fear & complications with undocumented workers.

-         However, people with language barriers are Majority Undocumented

We need to engage each Spanish-speaking group separately (as well as other language groups)

Education & Jobs – Universal Motivators

-         Workplace Apprenticeship/Journeymen Training: Would like to attract immigrant populations (can also work with Refugees)

• What can be done?
• Try to help both find common ground and understand each other’s situation better
• Let legal immigrants know that undocumented immigrants don’t have same language skills, race, economic power, or opportunities (ex. Claire Bien’s family [legal] and her undocumented cousin)
• Show immigrants that their oppression serves a big business purpose / political agenda.
• Roots of the conflict
• Issue is driven by labor/economics, access to services, and not being able to bring over family members legally – builds resentment towards undocumented
• Henry Lowendorf / John Jairo Lugo’s example: anti-immigrant rally at City Hall. Two legal immigrants stood up and were angry because they couldn’t legally bring over their families, yet undocumented are “cutting in line”
• How to deal with this argument: Those who are angry about not being able to bring their families here should be reaffirmed – they should be able to bring their families, and that’s why they need to be working for immigration reform with family-based system
• Possible solutions
• More dialogue between communities that believe in the same things – Anglo and Latino Catholic churches
• Have a series of open discussions led by Community Mediation involving immigrant community and white and African American communities
• Get Interfaith Community Cooperative Ministries involved?
• Ask, what are the things that make you turn against immigrants rather than embracing them?
• Break down the divides between the Puerto Rican, black, and undocumented populations. Show them that they fall on the same educational/literacy levels. Find the common denominator that keeps them down: literacy and jobs
• Need to include white middle class: show them that they need to join with people who have less than them so that they can unite against those trying to eliminate the middle class
• Who to reach out to specifically for these dialogues:
• Church leaders of different denominations
• New Haven aldermen representing majority Latino or African-American communities
• Consciousness-raising sessions to educate people on how they’re being played against each other. De-mask political and economic interests behind the scapegoating of immigrants.
• Cut through the myth of privilege (that one class has to step on the others to keep themselves ahead and afloat)

• The two sides of labor unions (pro- and anti-immigrant) are currently working together in the Senate to try to get the good parts of the STRIVE act revived and throw out the bad parts.
• Should we do something to applaud/support their efforts?
• Need to educate the public of the consequences of passing any immigration bill: a bad bill is worse than no bill.
• How to frame the debate
• Talk about globalization: we shouldn’t drive down living standards in order to increase profits for companies!
• Ask why people are leaving their countries rather than just looking at how we can solve the immigration problem domestically
• What are our foreign policies doing to other countries that immigrants are coming from?
• Start trying to enforce international labor rights through NAFTA/WTO as some lawyers are trying to do in Mexico?
• Unions in US and Mexico need to work together against NAFTA/bad policy. Talk across border lines. Some (steel workers and truck drivers) are already trying to do this.
• Get international aid organizations involved
• Try to find out what places like Oxfam do with immigration and unions in other countries
• Work with international aid organizations lobbying about the Farm Bill. Get the Farm Bill changed to benefit farmers in other countries, and to stop hurting small family farmers here, since right now, subsidies are going to big conglomerates
• People who benefit from free trade were big conglomerates, not laborers
• How do we inject Fair Trade and humane foreign policy into immigration debates?
• How to raise standards for workers here in New Haven
• Junta, ULA, and media can work to get stories of immigrants out into public: ask, why did you come here? Inform people of the reason why immigrants are coming here, the push-pull factor that US policy is creating
• 20-minute piece on why people left homes to come to New Haven to do what they do here
• Distribute to churches, TV stations, You-Tube
• David Koff: filmmaker who wants to do a documentary on the raids. Get him to help?
• Use this as a tool to get CT senators to STOP THE RAIDS.
• Get common program for unions so union workers and immigrants both benefit when they join
• Get an agenda and talk to Congresspeople:
• Stop the raids
• It’s in everyone’s self-interest to make sure we have good immigration reform

• Moving forward:
• Set up comprehensive meeting with Senators and DeLauro to stop raids
• Increase availability of DemocracyWorks and Know Your Rights information
• Promote parent engagement in schools
• Community dialogues through Community Mediation to ease tension between different racial/economic/immigrant groups
• Advocate door-to-door to put a positive spin on immigration; show why it’s good
• Go to law schools during orientation to get law students to do internships on immigration law to represent individuals without lawyers in deportation cases
• Support fair trade movement to make it more possible to let people stay in their own countries, and continue working on the Farm Bill and opposing Free Trade Agreements
• Urge State Commission for Human Rights to be more active in letting immigrants know that they can go there with workplace discrimination cases
• More positive publicity about immigrants and refugees: who they are and why they come

I.  First Agenda Group:  How can we connect immigrants with legal resources? 

Members of the group:  Chris George, Brenda Cavanaugh, Jennifer Sheridan, Linda Murray, Carole Arnold 

Action Steps Suggested: 

1.  Keep lines of communication open between non-profit groups involved in this work so they can help each other:  Junta – strong grassroots connections with the immigrant community; IRIS – helps refugees fill out necessary paperwork; International Institute (has a list of pro-bono lawyers willing to take immigration cases).

2.  We can talk with a contact person at the local library (Jim Welbourne?) to ask if the library will host information sessions on legal rights and resources.

3.  Have information/speakers available at local college/university opening days in order to recruit law students willing to intern/work in the field.

4.  Convince Quinnipiac that they should have a program in their law department devoted to immigration law.

5.  Become more connected/familiar with the immigrant community to earn their trust so they will take advantage of the resources we have to offer.  Go to their identifiable leaders, their places of gathering (church, restaurants, etc.).  Offer information/speaker services at their gathering places.

6.  Contact the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities and ask them to investigate the victimization of the immigrant community.  If they do not respond, flood them with letters of grievances.

7.  Go back to our social groups (church, etc.) and educate our peers about the issue of immigration.

Some issues seen as difficult in order to accomplish this task: 

1.  Pro-bono lawyers are not always versed specifically in immigration law.

2.  The detained immigrants are being held in Rhode Island, how do we convince pro-bono attorneys to travel for a free case?

3.  There are not enough attorneys on the list and they often do not respond to calls/e-mails.

4.  The immigrant population is full of mistrust and suspicion, difficult to get them to attend information sessions or to give any personal information needed to help them.

5. Some people are falsely representing themselves as immigration attorneys, how can we stop people from giving them money?

6.  The Commission on Human Rights & Opportunity is very reactive – how do we make them pro-active as they should be?

ACTIONS:
a. Encourage participation by law students
b. Get local universities to focus on immigration
c. Urge CHRO to publicize their services to the undocumented (if they refuse, get the undocumented to flood them with complaints)


Topic 2: Civic Engagement & Services for Immigrations
a. Education--Stressors that affect the children (language, socio-economic status, self-esteem, etc.)
b. Keeping families together safely and productively
c. Health Care and Housing

ACTIONS:
a. Increase availability of Democracy Works
b. Promote parent engagement in schools (get parents involved on immigration issues)


Topic 3: Ethnic Issues

ACTIONS:
a. Community dialogues between different ethnic groups, faiths, etc.--enlarge the table!
b. Participate in upcoming immigration dialogue that will be on McNeil-Lehr


Topic 4: International Policy and Immigration
a. Scapegoating immigrants to divert attention from disastrous national and international policies
b. How do we stop first world foreign policies that encourage migration to escape poverty?

ACTIONS:
a. Meet with politicians to stop ICE raids
b. Make a documentary about sending issues


Topic 5: Messaging
a. Creating one collective message that resonates with all of our interests
b. Balancing/welcoming justice/common sense and refuge/compassion; avoiding the legal subterfuge of "reform vs. tyranny"; Bush's "hidden agenda of 'reform'"
c. How do we positively engage anti-immigrant "fanatics"?
d. Racism

ACTIONS:
a. Hold more dialogues
b. Launch door-to-door campaign
c. IRIS to start doing more PR, advocacy--telling the story of refugees

• "here's how to do immigration"
• "these are the resources"
• "these are the services available"
• train churches and immigrants about culture
• need an agency to grease the employment world
• teaching churches how to address the cultural issues
• teaching immigrants to understand American cultural expectations
• need a warehouse connected to this coordinating agency for household supplies
• need to have contacts with businesses and schools

• discipline issues
• disrespect of parents, traditions, the "old" country
• marital issues