From Stop Mass Incarceration Network:
Wednesday, April 1—Nationwide:
Stop the Detention, Deportation and Murder of Immigrants in the U.S.—A Day Of Struggle To Stop All Attacks On All Immigrants
Make April 1 a Day of Building a Powerful April 14th!
March 27, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Vicious attacks on immigrants in the U.S. are widespread and intensifying. Millions are targeted, rounded up and deported. Immigrants face horrendous, inhumane conditions while incarcerated. Immigrants are being shot down by U.S. police one after the other. Three police killings of unarmed Mexican nationals occurred in February 2015:
Tuesday, Feb. 10—police in Pasco, Washington fatally shot unarmed 35-year-old Antonio Zambrano-Montes.
Friday, Feb. 20—Grapevine, Texas police fatally shot unarmed 31-year-old Ruben Garcia Villalpando on the roadside, after he'd been pulled over for a suspected traffic violation.
Friday, Feb. 27—police in Santa Ana, California fatally shot unarmed Ernesto Javier Canepa Diaz.
And, on March 1—a Cameroon born immigrant, "Brother Africa," was gunned down in cold blood by the LAPD.
There have been other police murders of Central American immigrants in recent months, including 4 in Salinas and another in San Francisco CA.
February 20—some 2,000 men at the brutally run Willacy County Correctional Center in South Texas, near the Mexico border, rebelled against abusive, degrading, filthy, and inhumane conditions.
March 4—the U.S. Border Patrol reported that the bodies of 55 immigrants have been found in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas since October 2014. That does not include the 15 bodies of drowning victims pulled out of the Rio Grande River. The border these immigrants died trying to cross is one of the most heavily militarized patches of terrain in the world, all of it aimed against them.
Over a few days in early March—2,059 immigrants were arrested nationwide by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in “Operation Cross Check.” The people arrested are either being deported quickly or sent before a U.S. Attorney for further criminal charges, to be deported when they’ve finished their sentences.
The Call for #ShutDownA14—"Stop Business As Usual! No Work! No School! Say No More To The System Giving A Green Light To Killer Cops!" points out that murder by police is a concentration of an overall program of mass incarceration and all its consequences directly affecting tens of millions of people. It also says: “A hidden part of this program is the demonization, criminalization, deportation, and murder of immigrants. This must stop."
The movement to stop mass incarceration, police terror and crminalization must stand shoulder-to-shoulder with immigrants who are in the crosshairs of U.S. state repression and violence. They are our sisters and brothers. We need to work on forging this unity in building for April 14th.
On April 1st, wherever possible, we encourage “No Business as Usual” actions be carried out in cities large and small in the U.S. These actions could include politically targeting those institutions responsible for the deportations, criminalization and murder of immigrants - police, ICE and Border Patrol, or other symbols of white supremacy and fascist xenophobia.
As we take up April 1, let's also challenge all to be in the streets on A14.
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Special note—The Stop Mass Incarceration Network salutes the family members of the 43 Mexican students kidnapped and brutally murdered by government forces in Ayotzinapa, Mexico (who are now on a caravan through “El Norte”). Thousands are rising up in Mexico against this mass murder and the cover-up at the top levels of the Mexican government. We unite with those rising up, we join them in common cause in a cross-border fight against state sanctioned murder.
Los Angeles event information (we encourage people in other cities to make plans!):
LOS ANGELES
2 pm—Press Conference, 6th and Union, Pico Union
March to LAPD Rampart Division
6th and Union is the Westlake District/Pico Union site where the LAPD murdered Guatemalan immigrant Manuel Jaminez Xum on September 5, 2010. Mass protests erupted for several days in the Pico-Union area in outrage to his murder by the LAPD. The Los Angeles Police Commission whitewashed his murder, essentially giving a green light to Manuel's and future murders by the LAPD. In light of the many murders of immigrants by the LAPD and other police departments in 2015, we will begin our April 1 press conference and action at the site of Manuel Jaminez Xum's murder by the LAPD. We will hold the event in his honor and in honor of all immigrants lives that have been stolen by brutal, murdering police.
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