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JCA: We Stand for Immigrant Rights Click a thumbnail to view a full-sized photo.
Note: Immigrant Rights Photo folder located in public, jca website, photos Jump to: JCA Immigrant Rights Campaign History Immigrant Rights Leadership Team Mission How You Can Support Immigrant Rights JCA Stands for Fair and Humane Comprehensive Immigration Reform Immigrant Rights Online Information
JCA Immigrant Rights Campaign History JCA has been organizing for Immigrant Rights since 2001. We worked with a coalition of faith, labor, immigrant and civil rights organizations to pass local Immigration Enforcement Separation Ordinances in Minneapolis in 2003 and Saint Paul in 2004. These ordinances help ensure that immigrants have full access to city services and that local police are not burdened with enforcing immigration law. In spring of 2006 we organized with our partners in the Alliance For Fair Immigration Reform in Minnesota (AFFIRM) to build a broad based movement to defeat the Governor’s anti-immigrant legislative agenda while putting forth a vision for comprehensive immigration reform at the federal level. In 2007 AFFIRM put forth the Immigrant Rights State Legislative Package (link to public-immigrant rights-affirm- affirm 2007 policy agenda) and our members have worked hard to educate, organize, and advocate in support of it’s passage. Our Immigration work is led by the Immigrant Rights Leadership Team. Immigrant Rights Leadership Team Mission The IRLT works to build leadership within the Jewish community and to work with allies in support of comprehensive immigration reform. We support fixing our broken immigration system by providing for family reunification, a path to U.S. citizenship for immigrants and their families now living and working in the United States, a fair and just immigration process for future immigrants and refugees, and by restoring due process and human rights protections. As Jews, our history and religion teach us that we must speak up when we see injustice, and as American Jews, we represent an immigrant people and we remember our own immigrant experience. How You Can Support Immigrant Rights For more information, contact JCA Immigrant Rights Organizer Lauren Bastien at (651)632-2184 or lauren@jewishcommunityaction.org. Sign up to receive Immigrant Rights Action Alerts. Join JCA at Marches, Rallies and Vigils for Immigrant Rights. Attend Immigrant Rights Leadership Team Monthly Meetings. Host an Immigration Forum at your Synagogue. Give a D’var Torah on Immigrant Rights. Set up a letter writing station at your congregation. Contact your representatives and let them know you support fair and humane comprehensive immigration reform at the federal level and immigrant rights legislation at the state level. JCA Stands for Fair and Humane Comprehensive Immigration Reform As American Jews, we represent an immigrant people living within a nation that is rich with diversity of history and experience. Since the beginning of our history, Jews have known the experience of being immigrants and wanderers. Indeed, the first commandment given to Abraham is "leave your land, your people and your parental home." As slaves in the land of Egypt, we experienced the worst of what foreignness can entail. Accordingly, our legal and ethical teachings demand that our own experience of being strangers in other lands compel us to care for the newcomers within our own communities. The Torah alone presents dozens of commandments governing the treatment of strangers, including the prohibition against oppressing the other, and the mandate to make "one law for both the citizen and stranger among you" (Exodus 22:20, 24:22). We in the Jewish community know that people do not flee their homes without reason. They leave to escape oppression, violence, poverty, and desperation. They emigrate in the belief that new surroundings offer better opportunities and a better life. Many have sought such opportunity in the U.S. and have become our neighbors. They are individuals striving for the very same things that we seek to give our families, and they come with the same hopes as our own grandparents. We cannot look at the immigration question without seeing the faces of our friends and forebears. Much like the first Jewish immigrants who arrived in the United States 350 years ago, today’s immigrants seek freedom and the opportunity to build new lives, to make contributions and to become full participants in American society. As Jews, our history and religion teach us that we must speak up when see injustice. This is why Jewish Community Action joins a century-long legacy of American Jews supporting immigrant rights. Because our current immigration system is out of line with Jewish values of dignity and human rights for all, JCA joins AFFIRM, a Minnesota coalition of organizations working to pass fair and humane comprehensive immigration reform. Alliance for Fair Federal Immigration Reform of Minnesota (AFFIRM)
Immigrant Rights Online Information See "Links" on the left-hand toolbar for a list of Jewish social justice organizations, many of which are working on Immigrant Rights campaigns. Additional Jewish resources: The Jewish Immigration Toolkit Labor on the Bimah 2006: Immigration and Immigrant Rights Socialaction.com’s Immigrants and Refugees page Local Organizations Alliance for Fair Federal Immigration Reform of Minnesota (AFFIRM) Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights - Energy of a Nation: Immigration Resources Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Coalition (MIRAC) National Organizations Coalition For Comprehensive Immigration Reform Fair Immigration Reform Movement National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
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