[Peace] upcoming events to come / from tonight's Immigrant Rights meeting

[Karen Medina]

Tonight was an Immigration Forum meeting. It was well attended.
Including several representatives of the sheriff's office and local
police. Also present were immigration activists, a local lawyer who
works with Spanish-speaking clients and immigration, and several other
groups working with immigration issues.

I will be posting at least 3 upcoming events related to the issues of
immigration and police. All the events occur between now and the
middle of June.

The Immigration Forum has had great success in dealing with the
Sheriff's office about Secure Communities. The Sheriff has said that
they won't detain people for ICE if the person is not a criminal.

The Forum's success started with a public meeting / panel about 6
months ago where they invited a representative from the Sheriff's
office to be on the panel.

Now the Immigration Forum is concentrating work on laws that would
allow a valid Illinois driver's license for immigrants, both
documented and undocumented. Currently there is a lot of confusion
about what documents are valid for driving (licenses from other
countries, an international driver's license and other documents are
sometimes permissible), but insurance requires specific documents, and
for the police here there is a concern that the driving certificates
in some states don't have a photo.

Also, there is a concentrated effort to reach out to other groups,
both religious groups and non-religious based activist groups.

A group from Chicago was also promoting an up-coming demonstration
about a recent incident with a person in North Carolina being labeled
as a criminal though he was never ticketed for any driving violation
each of the six times he was stopped.

I just wanted to give you a head's up on the upcoming events, the
issues, and this important movement right here in Champaign Urbana.

-karen medina

Below is a copy of the announcement about tonight's meeting.
Some media were present.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Aaron Johnson-Ortiz <aajohnsonortiz at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, May 3, 2012 at 4:11 PM
Subject: Immigrant Rights Tonight 7PM Champaign Public Library

As you are probably already aware, there will be a large public
gathering called "INsecure Communities 2: Preseverance, Commitment,
and Justice" tonight at 7PM at the Champaign Public Library.

This is a follow-up event to the first "INsecure Communities" from
December of last year that drew more than 175 people.  At the last
event, we pressured the Sheriff's Office to not violate the
constitutional rights of immigrants and to not detain them without a
warrant or a court order.  The Sheriff's Office had previously entered
into the misnamed "Secure Communities" partnership with Immigration
and Customs Enforcements (ICE) in October of 2010, which resultuted in
the unjust incarceration of hundreds of immigrants in our community
over the next year and a half, even though most of them had commited
only simple traffic violations.

Because of the large turn-out to the Dec event and community pressure,
the Sheriff's Office has now agreed to more immigrant-friendly
policies, and we want to improve those policies, build on our
grassroots momentum, and make sure we don't lose ground!

I hope you will consider coming tonight, and please let me know if you
have any questions,

Thank you,
Aaron Johnson-Ortiz