A Message From Petra Falcon, Promise Arizona Dream Vote Today

Petra Falcon is one of my mentors, a person in whom I have great respect.  She sent me this message and asked we pass it along!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Tim,

If there was ever a moment when we needed all your faith and action, today is it.

The House leadership announced last night that the DREAM Act will come up for a vote today. And this afternoon, the Senate will be voting on the cloture motion that would allow the Senate to proceed to a vote on the DREAM Act. NOW is the time to do everything we can to pass the DREAM Act!

We urge you to support the thousands of DREAMers in Arizona and across the nation through your prayers and phone calls to representatives.

Call your Senators: English: 866-996-5161 | Spanish: 866-961-4293
Call your Representative: English: 866-967-6018
Call a targeted Senator: English: 866-587-6101 | Spanish: 866-956-3902

All our Members of Congress have to hear from us, but especially the following Arizona representatives who need a good final push to vote YES!

Congresswoman Giffords Arizona Office: (520) 881-3588 & DC Office (202) 225-2542
Rep. Kirkpatrick Arizona Office: (928) 445 3434 & DC Office (202) 225 2315/

Tell the staffer who answers that you're counting on them to stand on the just side of this issue by voting for the DREAM Act which will give our young people a chance to fulfill their dreams and serve their country.

In prayer and solidarity,

Petra Falcon
Executive Director
Promise Arizona

P.S. Please forward this message widely!

The Dream Act could add billions to the economy and reduce the deficit!  It would add hundreds of potential recruits in defense of our country!  Hundreds of young people are at risk of deportation as we speak!

BuzzNet Tags: dream activist,dream act,petra falcon,promise arizona,john mccain,congresswoman giffords,rep. kirkpatrick,immigration refrom,cir,rifa

RIFFA CIR ASAP confidential talking points 4 your i’s only, Carlos, disclose with caution!

To: Carlos Velasquez, enlavidanueva@yahoo.com

From:  Tim Paynter

Carlos,  Here are the confidential RIFA Cir talking points I promised you.

• The average English speaker does not know what immigration reform is all about.  It is time English speaking citizens start talking with each other.  Information is power.
• The bill provides comprehensive immigration reform, which means it addresses conservative concerns about border security while resolving immigration problems in the U.S.
• Section 101 of the act addresses border security.  It provides a billion dollars a year to beef up security in major sea ports.  It provides bullet proof vests for all border patrol agents.  It provides a comprehensive assessment of our current border security plan so we don’t spend money foolishly and we make our security investment dollars count.
• We are spending billions of dollars a year catching and rounding up undocumented workers.  The money could be better spent targeting drug traffickers and terrorists instead of chasing down poor people.
• The law in Arizona will make reporting a crime as serious as rape difficult.  A child who is raped or molested will be reticent to report it as the entire family could be deported.  The perpetrator would get away since there would be no witnesses.  Other problems exist including straining police protection and racial profiling.  Immigration reform is badly needed to combat abusive legislation.
•  
• The bill includes provisions of the Dream Act, which is legislation that will allow immigrant children to go to college and break the chain of poverty.
• While the bill provides an eventual path to legalization, it is not amnesty.  The process requires passing a background check, payment of a fine and on paper will take 6 years.  With backlogs, the process could take 10 to 15 years.  
• The total potential fines could be over 2.5 billion dollars!
• With the recession ending, the U.S. will have difficulty providing adequate labor for retiring baby boomers.  The law provides for how new labor will be admitted to the U.S.
• ICE Raids are on the increase during the Obama administration.  Currently, ICE prides itself on massive round ups which yank mothers and children out of bed at 4:00 in the morning. 
• ICE claims it has a program targeting criminal illegal aliens but you don’t need to break much of a law to considered criminal and therefore worth tracking down.  A simple DUI may be enough, even if it happened years ago.
• Deportations break up families.  They often leave a mother here fending for her children with the father in Mexico.  In other scenarios, a child is deported to Mexico while his mother, father and siblings remain in the U.S. 
• A U.S. citizen child who returns to Mexico with his undocumented mother or father will grow up in the Mexican culture, learn Spanish and not understand the U.S. system.  At age 18 he may re-enter the country and claim his citizenship.  This is a horrible way to treat a U.S. citizen.  A simple solution is to allow his family to complete their migration process and allow the U.S. citizen a chance to grow up in culture of America. 
• Family values don’t support breaking up of families.
• RIFA Stands for Reform Immigration For America.  I think the Spanish version is Reforma Migratoria Pro Amercia.  This is a national movement comprised of several civil rights groups who banded together to bring the message of immigration reform to you and me.

     There are a lot more items you might talk about.  These will get you started.  You will be amazed at how many people are misinformed.  Years of conservative talk radio without a counter-balancing point of view have caused confusion about the issue.

     I wish you the best of luck.  I won’t say guard these with your life, but I can tell you a person with a closed mind will not be able to understand the points.  You might as well not waste your time on them.

     The Philadelphia Immigration Examiner has a good article on the matter.

Here is a real fun one: RIFA Nevada

Some other great resources: 

     The National Immigration Forum

     The Center for American Progress

     The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
     These are my own points of view. I don’t speak for the Reform  Immigration For America people ( RIFA ), or Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR ASAP) proponents.  You can check the RIFA website.  By the way, there will be marches and events on May 1st throughout the nation.  Anyone who is interested in learning about immigration should attend one.  

     Sincerely,

     Tim Paynter

c.c.  Mike Stevens, Phil Shorter, Miguel Aguilar, Raul Serengati, Steven B. Serious, Jes I. Can @ indonesia center for fair treatment

The contents of this communication are confidential and intended for the person addressed only.

Colorado prepares refugee camp - Arizona immigrants flee - Obama calls for reform in 2010 - CIR, RIFA Arpaio

In an emergency meeting Friday night, a group of Colorado



immigrant’s rights activist decided to provide shelter to families fleeing Arizona in terror.  Governor Jan Brewer signed into effect a law that makes being an illegal immigrant a crime and requires local and state police officers to detain workers whenever they suspect they lack documents.  Those ascertained as being undocumented will be made available to immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) for deportation.

Meanwhile, Sheriff  “Little Joe” Arpaio, a bully with a badge, has sworn to use the law to his advantage.

 Free at last, free at last, ohh lordy, free at last!

Sheriff “Little Joe” Arpaio can pick on

Latinos to his hearts content!

"Now if we show they're illegal, we can actually arrest them and put them in our jails," Arpaio said. 

“Little Joe’s” statement is ridiculous since he brags about detaining over 80,000 undocumented workers during his rein of terror as sheriff.  If there had been such grand impediments to arrest and detention he would not have been able to ruin so many lives.


One can reasonably imagine the reaction of the undocumented community.  Arizona has always been right-wing and anti-immigrant in their sentiment.  Like Colorado, they begrudge medical treatment to needy workers unless it is “a life threatening emergency”. 

However, the new Arizona law is so vicious it will strike terror in the hearts of grand mothers as they drive to the store.  Entire families are destined to be harassed, ripped apart, and displaced.  Employers will lose significant sums of money when their workers do not show up.  Middle class fathers may want to re-think sending their kids to college since mundane jobs like washing dishes will pay significantly more than they did before.  You can bet some of the Republican voting base that supported the law will be the first to bitch as restaurant food prices go up to cover increased labor costs.

    The biggest losers in the Arizona hate based law are citizen Latinos who are confused for immigrants.  Now is a great time to own clothing stores that carry yuppie style clothing.  No one is going to want to look remotely like they came from the poor villages of Mexico.  Woe be it to the Latino tourist, still full of the vibrations of little Mexico, if he forgets to change back into his gringo attire after crossing back into the U.S.  If he makes a mistake like that he is likely to find himself face down on the pavement as a cop slaps on the silver bracelets until the citizen’s true identity can be ascertained.

None of this will change the Coyote business which transports 80,000 plus immigrants across the Arizona border every year.  Very few of the humans who are treated like smuggled cargo remain in Arizona.  Most of them are transported to other states as fast as possible.  Hence, the Arizona hate law changes nothing.  Law enforcement has always profiled for human smugglers.


Meanwhile, immigrant groups are preparing for the flight from the witch hunt which is surely to begin.  Sheriff “Little Joe” Arpaio is not the only cop who loves harassing immigrants in order to grab headlines.  There are plenty of copycats.  Frankly, common sense says, if you are Latino and have not made arrangements to leave Arizona, now is a great time to call your travel agent. 

Arizona is going to be just as unpleasant a place for Latinos today as the deep South was for African Americans in the 1950’s. It won’t take much pretext to stop anyone of Hispanic descent, and the concept of probable cause, a reasonable suspicion a crime has been committed, might as well be abolished for Latinos.  All an officer needs to do to make his unreasonable search and seizure case stick is claim the cat he stopped looked like an illegal immigrant.  Most police officers can tell just by looking these days, although we have yet to hear a definition of the illegal immigrant look.

Surprisingly, Arizona has done the pro-immigrant legislation movement a huge favor.  National interests are focusing on the immigration debate after the issue has been wholly ignored by the press.  President Obama pledged support of immigration reform this year just a few minutes ago.  Such attention will likely lead to comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) in part through the efforts of RIFA organizing, which will make hate based laws like the one in Arizona obsolete.

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