Heidi Rand Actions, Get Involved, newsletter action, Uncategorized, Volunteer Opportunity

Help ensure we’re all counted

The 2020 Census is coming! A complete count of “all persons” living in the United States during the upcoming census is important to us all; the results determine how many Congressional seats each state gets and the amount of federal funding that states, counties and communities receive. With the White House’s outrageous attempts to add a citizenship question, our concern that vulnerable communities will be badly undercounted looms large. The Urban Institute’s recent research report assesses that California has the greatest undercount risk; their interactive tool shows how miscount risk factors could affect states and demographic groups in the 2020 Census. That’s our schools, roads, and other public services at risk of losing money!

On the upcoming census couples living together will have the option to identify their relationship as same-sex. Responses will provide the most reliable data to date on the number of same-sex marriages and cohabiting partners in the U.S.;  vital information for advocates, policymakers, and researchers working on LGBTQ+ issues.

census Fact_Sheet_for_LGBTQ_Audience-1 640.jpg

Beyond responding to the census yourself, there’s much you can do to help make sure all people in our communities are counted. 

What you can do:

  • Work for the Census! The U.S. Census Bureau is recruiting thousands of people across the country to help with the 2020 count. Click here for more info, including job details, how to apply, pay and locations, and FAQs.
  • Take Rock the Vote’s Pledge to be Counted!
  • Learn more:
    • Check out this site with lots of info about the California census.
    • Find out other ways you can partner with the 2020 Census.
    • Come to our September 29 All Members Meeting from 1-3 PM in Dublin. Indivisible Livermore’s Kyoko Takayama, an Alameda County Census Ambassador (read more about that program below), will speak about the census.

Alameda County

Apply to volunteer with Alameda County’s Census Ambassador Program! Ambassadors are trained to conduct outreach, keep their community informed, and host events to raise awareness about the census. Training and materials are provided. To learn more, check out this Census Ambassador Program flyer. Want to sign up? Apply online here. Note that there’s limited funding available to support individuals and organizations with financial need – apply by October 28 to be considered for a mini-grant. For more info, see ACgov.org’s Census 2020 webpage.

Contra Costa County

See Contra Costa County’s website for more info on census jobs for CoCoCo residents. Note that it refers to the same link we gave above to apply online for supervisory and non-supervisory jobs, at a rate of $25 – $27.50 per hour.

Contra Costa County census

In July, we asked you to speak out against the administration adding a citizenship question to the census, for many reasons, including that it would skew the census count by discouraging immigrants from participating. You helped win that battle, and now it’s time to help make sure that all of us are counted!

Photo: Abacus, by Hans Braxmeier 

 

fionawoods7 Actions, Events, Our Impact, Rallies & Protests, Uncategorized

Border to border with love to defund hate

On September 10, volunteers gathered to assemble a giant pro-immigrant, anti-hate collage as part of Indivisible East Bay’s participation in Defund Hate Week. Coordinated by the Defund Hate Campaign, a group of immigration advocacy and immigrant-led organizations, the overarching goal was to put our Members of Congress on notice and remind them we will hold them accountable to fight the administration’s anti-immigrant agenda.

For our IEB event — one of over 150 organized! — we chose to create artwork comprised of messages about defunding hate and welcoming immigrants. Our plan – to collect the messages into a collage that we’d send to the border to be added to a Defund Hate petition addressed to Congressional Democrats. 

Our collage came together quickly as participants arrived and got to work.

Defund Hate collage party, organizers Amelia and Fionap, hoto by Ted Lam
Organizers Amelia & Fiona, at Defund Hate collage party, photo by Ted Lam

Submissions ranged from personal written messages to three-dimensional construction paper creations.

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Highlights included paper cranes originally collected to be placed on the gates of a migrant detention camp in Dilley, Texas, as part of a peaceful protest by survivors of Japanese internment camps and their relatives.

Defund Hate collage, photo by Fiona Woods
Defund Hate collage, photo by Fiona Woods

There were also great submissions from the staff of 1951 Coffee, the local non-profit cafe that provides barista training to the refugee community. There was so much art we had to add an extra panel to the original banner to fit everything!

In between creating submissions for the banner, we also wrote postcards to our Members of Congress in support of Defund Hate Week’s goals. We urged our MoCs to cut funding for ICE and CBP, to vote to reject bills that include funds transfers to ICE, and to support deportation alternatives while opposing dangerous “third-country agreements”. 

We mailed our banner on Weds., September 11, and it reached San Diego in time for the Defund Hate rally there on Friday — the culmination of Defund Hate Week.

A very special thank you to the International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers for graciously allowing us to use their space to create our collage, and to all of the volunteers (including some highly creative kids!) who contributed beautiful submissions.

clumston Actions, Events, Get Involved, Ice cream, Meetings, newsletter action, Our Impact, Uncategorized

Change the Regime with Ice Cream!

Nothing’s better than eating ice cream with friends! Now’s the time to reach out to that neighbor who’s upset about immigration or climate change and doesn’t know what to do, and bring them to Indivisible East Bay’s All Members Meeting in Dublin on Sunday, September 29, from 1-3 pm! Tell them to bring their charged up phone + laptop or other device because we have the solution to existential dread — taking action!

To get your new resistance friend up to speed on how Indivisible National works with chapters like ours, we’ve invited Dennessa Atiles, Indivisible’s new organizer for Northern California, Alaska and Hawaii to come share her thoughts. She’ll give an update on priorities for 2020 and her goals for organizing. If you ever wondered how Indy staff helps support all the chapters, now’s your chance to find out.

You and your buddy will be inspired by tireless Livermore community organizer extraordinaire, Kyoko Takayama. One of the leads for Tri-Valley Grassroots Organizing (Tri-Valley GO), Kyoko is now certified as an Alameda County Census 2020 Ambassador and will share more about the outreach efforts in Alameda County and what we can do to help out.

Now that you and your ally in (bare) arms (and hey, we’ve got a t-shirt for that!) are ready to go, you’ll have your choice of our favorite resistance flavors — phone banking, postcarding, or registering voters by mail! We also know it’s the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, and our phone calls will end exactly at 3 pm. Oh, and ice cream, too, because hey, it’s Sundae!

RSVP here (not required but it’ll help us plan how much ice cream to bring!)

Ice cream solves everything, photo by Brendan Church

indivisibleebadmin Actions, Events, Get Involved, Meetings, newsletter action, Our Impact, Uncategorized

Face to face with Sen. Feinstein’s state director

Our Q&A with Senator Feinstein’s new state director is coming up next Monday, September 23, and we’ve got plenty to talk about!

Since Senator Feinstein was reelected, many of us at Indivisible East Bay who track her see signs that she’s losing touch with her constituents and losing a sense of urgency about resisting the GOP agenda. From distancing herself from bold action to address climate change, to voting to send extra money to the border with no guardrails, to her underwhelming response to the new Kavanaugh evidence, it looks like she’s forgetting what we sent her back to Washington to do.

We know she’s capable of much more, but we need to push her!

Jim Lazarus, Sen. Feinstein’s current state director, wasn’t around in early 2017, or during the health care fight, or the Kavanaugh hearings, or the Blue Wave. He has no idea what the resistance is capable of, and his boss appears to have forgotten.

Let’s show both of them by turning out in force for this meeting, bringing our tough, thoughtful, probing questions, and a powerful call to resistance and action. Join us on Sept. 23 from 5:15 to 7:30 PM, at the Berkeley Public Library Main Branch.

A climate contingent plans to attend with banners, signs, and t-shirts of the organizations they’re representing. They invite others to meet in front of the Library at 5 PM to grab signs and coordinate questions. You can let Leana know at leanarosetti@gmail.com if you want to join them.

You can RSVP here (not required, but helps us plan), and whether or not you can make it, please call Sen. Feinstein today and say:

My name is ___, my zip code is ___, and I’m a member of Indivisible East Bay. I’m calling to ask Senator Feinstein to Defund Hate in this year’s budget by cutting funding for ICE and CBP in the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill, prohibiting funding transfers to ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations, and including provisions to protect migrants.

  • Sen. Dianne Feinstein: (email); (415) 393-0707 • DC: (202) 224-3841

The meeting is free and open to the public. The Berkeley Main Library is at 2090 Kittredge Street (near downtown Berkeley BART, cross street is Shattuck Avenue). The meeting room is upstairs in the third floor administrative wing, and is accessible. Children are welcome.

IEB’s meetings with Members of Congress and their staff are run according to the Indivisible Guide, which tells us to treat our MoCs, their staff, and all event participants with civility and respect. We encourage people to be assertive and express your opinions – even your frustration, if that’s how you feel! – but please remember that these are intended to be venues for thoughtful discussion and community sharing. Tirades, hate speech, violent speech of any kind, and excessive profanity will not be tolerated. In addition, Congressional staff is not permitted to discuss electioneering, and it is our policy not to bring it up or ask questions they can’t answer. Anyone comfortable with this approach is welcome to come.

This meeting is scheduled in the evening, and in the East Bay rather than San Francisco, to make it more accessible for working people and families. We really hope to see you there!

Read our article about IEB’s most recent meeting with Sen. Feinstein’s staff in June 2019, and our article about the last Q&A discussion we had in Oakland with Sen. Feinstein’s former state director and field representative, in August 2018.

If you have questions, please email us at info@indivisibleeb.org

 

Heidi Rand Actions, Events, Get Involved, newsletter action, Our Impact, Rallies & Protests, Uncategorized

Join the Global Climate Strike

Starting September 20 –

To those of you who watched the full CNN climate town hall, congratulations, take a break; for the other 99.9% of you who genuinely care and understand the dire need to save the planet but have a normal life that works better with trending highlights and firing retweets than with a seven hour binge-watch, it’s time to step up and join allies across the world in the Global Climate Strike, September 20-27. Luckily for us, there’s a whole week’s worth of events already lined up at the Bay Area Week of Climate Action – get on out there because, no pressure, but the future of humanity is literally depending on you. 

With the Despoiler-in-Chief calling the shots for the United States, we already know there’s cause for worry. But there’s also hope, because millions of people are raising their voices, and even better: youth are leading the way, striking internationally to demand action to address the climate crisis for the week of actions including marches, rallies, and more. Here’s how you can join them and help make all our voices heard:

What you can do:

Events:

Want to help? Find more info about these groups at their websites:

Photo, SF Bay Area Youth and Allies Climate Strike

Ion Y Actions, Events, Get Involved, Meetings, newsletter action, Our Impact, Uncategorized, Volunteer Opportunity

2019 National Election Integrity Conference

The National Voting Rights Task Force, a non-partisan voting rights organization, will host its third National Election Integrity Conference on October 5-6, from 10 am to 6 pm in Berkeley, at the South Berkeley Senior Center, 2939 Ellis Street, corner of Ashby Avenue, near the Ashby BART station.

Entitled The Coming 2020 Election Crisis: In Paper We Trust, the conference features more than 20 nationally-recognized leaders in the election integrity movement, covering crucial issues, sharing ideas, solving problems, and creating a strategy for the future of our elections system. The focus is still mainly on cybersecurity, voting machines, and election audits, but it has expanded to include open source election system software and the wider issues of both voter suppression (registration problems, gerrymandering, purging of voter registration rolls, hindrances to getting out the vote), and voter misdirection (deceptive election day announcements, fraudulent Facebook ads, and the organized campaigns like that of Cambridge Analytica). Election activists are investigating and uncovering these problems, fighting them by publicizing, litigating, organizing, and explaining what we all need to know and can do to help everyone be able to vote, have all the valid votes counted as cast, and verify that the real winners are the ones reported by the election systems in all the states.

Conference speakers include:

Click here to register. Conference tickets are $30 per day, or $50 for both days if purchased in advance, with discounts for seniors, teachers, students, and educational administrators or staff members. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

For background and an idea of what to expect you can look at the 2017 National Election Integrity Conference, which includes summaries and videos of every presentation. And read our article about the 2017 conference.

If you want to learn more about Indivisible East Bay’s Voter Rights & Election Integrity team, and how you can help, email us at info@IndivisibleEB.org, or join the #voting-issues channel on IEB’s Slack. For an invitation to join Slack, email: info@IndivisibleEB.org

Graphic: National Voting Rights Task Force

Heidi Rand Actions, Call and Email MoCs, Call Scripts, Meetings, Mueller report, newsletter action, Our Impact, Uncategorized

Impeachment’s getting real

Deadline: Right now –

Congress is back in DC post-recess, and we hope their ears are ringing from hearing loud and clear from you and many others who want them to push hard for impeachment! House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler has announced an imminent vote on the procedures for the committee’s inquiry, so it’s a critical time to tell your member of Congress what YOU think should be included in the articles of impeachment.

What you can do:

Take direct action! On September 21- 23, many groups and individuals are gathering in Washington D.C. to demonstrate the massive support for impeachment among the American people. Join them there, or here, or virtually!

  • Sat. Sept. 21, 12-1:30 PM: Join the Solidarity March in San Francisco for the We The People March taking place in DC and nationwide. Gather at the Federal Building, 90 7th St. for a “First Amendment Assembly” in solidarity with the DC March to showcase the power of the people featuring music and rousing chants.
  • Mon. Sept. 23: By the People, the umbrella grassroots impeachment advocacy group, will hold a mock hearing in the halls of Congress: The People Vs Trump. If you know anyone who lives near DC, share this link so they can join in.
  • NOW! Support By the People’s hearing and communicate your ideas for articles of impeachment to the folks demonstrating, using By The People’s great tool.  You can submit written testimony at that link (they have a great list of questions to guide what you write), or record a quick selfie video where you talk about your story and upload it at this link.

Call your Representative, and also call the House Judiciary Committee, to push these specific objectives for the inquiry:

  • Don’t wait for responses from the courts or from the administration to move the public inquiry forward.
  • Start public hearings in earnest immediately.
  • Cover the full range of impeachable offenses, beyond just what’s in the Mueller Report findings. Mention a couple of examples that are important to you personally — there are many to choose from at these sources:
  • Declare a specific date by which they will bring articles of impeachment to the House floor.
  • Rep. Mark DeSaulnier: (email); (510) 620-1000 • DC: (202) 225-2095
  • Rep. Barbara Lee: (email); (510) 763-0370 • DC: (202) 225-2661
  • Rep. Eric Swalwell: (email); (510) 370-3322 • DC: (202) 225-5065
  • House Judiciary Committee:  (202) 225-3951

For more information about impeachment, including views of MoCs leading the charge, like Representatives Al Green and Rashida Tlaib, take a look at the Impeachment University webinar series (archive viewable on YouTube). To keep up with nationally-coordinated actions, sign up with By the People. 

If you’re meeting with your Member of Congress’s staff, or with them personally, the IEB impeachment team would be glad to coordinate with you beforehand on the latest messaging and goals. Join the discussion, and post any questions or thoughts you have, on the #impeachment channel on Indivisible East Bay’s Slack. For an invitation to join Slack, email info@IndivisibleEB.org

Help us spread the word: Do you know of a group that we could visit to present a 30- to 60-minute impeachment information and discussion session? We’ve got one all ready to go, so let us know on Slack or by email. 

Talk to your friends and relatives about impeachment. Not sure what to say? Get up to speed by reading our earlier articles, with background and more actions you can take on impeachment, investigations, and the Mueller Report:

It’s incredibly important for the House to impeach Trump, regardless of what the Senate does, to officially and publicly find him unfit for office and dangerous to the country. More and more MoCs come out in support of an inquiry every week. Let’s make sure they do it right! 

Larry Baskett contributed to this article. Larry is a mechanical engineer from Berkeley who spent a year as a Science and Technology Policy Fellow with the California State Senate.

Graphic: By the People 

 

clumston Actions, Events, Get Involved, ICE, Our Impact, Rallies & Protests, Uncategorized, Who We Are

Rallies, Rocking & Rainbows!

Yes, we put the East Bay into Indivisible East Bay this past weekend, with events in Hayward, Berkeley and Oakland all in one 48 hour period!

First up, on September 6, Cal State East Bay students and faculty rallied in downtown Hayward to #SaveIsabel. Dozens of students marched from the Hayward campus through the streets to City Hall, singing “Which Side Are You On?” At City Hall, City Councilmember Aisha Wahab emceed the event organized by the CSU East Bay Associated Students Incorporated, Students for Quality Education and political science professor Danvy Le, at which about 100 people gathered to hear stories about what it means to be a Dreamer and the importance of protecting rights for patients such as Isabel.

Rep. Swalwell speaking at Save Isabel rally, photo by Andrea Lum
Rep. Swalwell speaking at Save Isabel rally

CA-15 Representative Eric Swalwell addressed the crowd, expressing his strong support for Rep. Mark DeSaulnier’s private bill HR 4225 requesting rescission of the original order terminating the Bueso family’s stay. The Hayward event followed an earlier rally for Isabel organized by the nurses and doctors of UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland.

The next morning, members of Indivisible East Bay convened at Berkeley City College, joining over 150 other local activists at the East Bay Rock the Congress conference led by Ogie Strogatz and Kook Huber, both longtime allies of IEB and outstanding activist leaders. RtC gave attendees new ideas and perspectives to consider while doing the hard work of organizing. Aimee Alison, founder of She the People and Democracy in Color, groups dedicated to advancing people of color in politics, delivered an inspiring keynote reminding attendees that there is a path to the White House among voters of color if we do the work to Get Out The Vote (GOTV). Dublin City Councilmember Shawn Kumagai – who readers of this blog may remember from his efforts to get Dublin to fly the rainbow flag for Pride – then facilitated a discussion of issue oriented and electoral focused organizations.

At Rock the Congress: Dublin City Councilmember Shawn Kumagai moderating discussion with activist leaders, photo by Andrea Lum
Shawn Kumagai moderating discussion with activist leaders

After lunch, attendees learned about Census 2020, how young people are leading change, and more. IEB Governance Committee members Nancy and Andrea presented a session on member engagement, otherwise known as “A bunch of randos walk into a protest.” 

Rock the Congress conference, photo by Andrea Lum

Click on the link in the schedule to learn more about the presenters for the jam-packed Rock the Congress conference.

IEB capped off the weekend by having a booth at the September 10 Oakland Pride Festival. 

IEB table at Oakland Pride
IEB table at Oakland Pride

Everyone enjoyed the excellent weather, reflected in the good mood and high energy of Pride attendees. Festival participants trickled in at first, but traffic picked up quickly and stayed strong for most of the festival’s duration. IEB’s booth was located on Franklin Street, the main thoroughfare of the festival, so we were able to catch a sizable portion of the crowd as they walked past our table. Our “Resist Trump!” whiteboard proved popular, attracting cheers, donations, and visitors who stopped by the table to see how they could get involved in our work.

IEB table at Oakland Pride, photo by Andrea Lum
IEB table at Oakland Pride,

Many had already heard of Indivisible and were familiar with its work. Some regular newsletter readers stopped by to say hello, along with folks who had attended past events and were looking to get re-engaged. We introduced Indivisible to a few new volunteers looking to get involved in activism for the first time. Many thanks to the IEB volunteers who showed up early and stayed late to spread the good word of resistance to the Pride-goers! 

If any of these activities sound like something you’d like to attend or help out with in the future, just send volunteer coordinator Andrea (andrea@indivisibleeb.org) an email to let her know. What a great weekend of good conversations, new newsletter signups, and high energy!

Photographs by Andrea Lum

indivisibleebadmin Actions, Events, Meetings, newsletter action, Rallies & Protests, Uncategorized, Volunteer Opportunity

Join us for Defund Hate Week!

Immigrant families are under an all-out assault: from caging children and families at the border and refusing them access to basic necessities like showers and toothbrushes, to launching raids that rip people away from homes where they’ve lived for years or even decades. Fueled by racism, hatred, and fear, the Trump administration has continued to pursue these unpopular and harmful policies – and Congress has continued to fund each and every one. As an official member of the Defund Hate Coalition, Indivisible East Bay stands with immigrant families to focus our collective power on defunding hate. 

Now, IEB is collecting creative messages from Bay Area members and allies to put together into a collage which we’ll add to a Border to Border with Love Petition, addressed to Congressional Democrats, as it makes its way down the West Coast to San Diego. There, we’ll get together with Native, Indivisible and local leaders for a rally to #DefundHate. Join us in this project! And keep reading to find out about more activities going on during Defund Hate Week, September 9-13.

What you can do:

Create a message!

Create your own messages to add to our collage! This action is both about defunding hate (specifically Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection) and celebrating and welcoming immigration – feel free to focus your piece on either or both. 

The only requirements are that the piece must be:

  1. six inches or smaller and flat
  2. made of paper or an equally light substance
  3. On-message: pro-immigrant and anti-hate!

Possible messages might include how immigration enforcement affects you personally, or our demands for Congressional action. For example:

  • Cut funding for ICE and CBP
  • Vote NO on any Department of Homeland Security funding bill that doesn’t prohibit funding transfers to ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (see our article)
  • Vote NO on any DHS funding bill that doesn’t cut ICE and CBP funding to fiscal year 16 levels
  • Require the DHS Inspector General to monitor detention and enforcement spending and report to Congress 
  • Support alternatives to detention: close the camps and end immigration detention 
  • End the “remain in Mexico” policy and dangerous “safe third country” agreements

For more complete guidelines and talking points, look here and here. 

Spread the word:

Better yet, do this with your friends and families! Create cards with like-minded coworkers during lunch, or bring some paper and markers to your book club or your kid’s soccer game. Be sure to collect contributors’ email addresses on a separate sheet so we can send everyone a photo of the final product!

Drop off pieces for the collage:

  • Any time (during open hours) before noon on Tuesday 9/10, leave your pieces in our drop box at the Rockridge branch of 1951 Coffee at 6021 College Ave, Oakland.
  • Any time (during open hours) before noon on Tuesday 9/10, leave your pieces in our drop box at Sports Basement Berkeley, 2727 Milvia St, Berkeley
  • Bring them to our special event on September 10 in Oakland (see below)!

Defund Hate Week Events:

  • Come to our main event: Tuesday, September 10, 5:30-7:30 PM at IFPTE Local 21, 1440 Broadway, Suite 610, Oakland, CA – we’ll be assembling the collage, writing postcards, and learning about other actions we can take. RSVP appreciated, but not required; we’d love to have you help out at the event, too!
  • Find us at Oakland Pride on Sunday, Sept. 8 (details and RSVP). 
  • Call your Member of Congress on the Defund Hate Call-In Day, September 9. Call script and details here.
  • Participate in Indivisible SF’s Defund Hate National Week of Action event, Friday September 13 in the plaza near the Ferry Building in SF.

Defund Hate

And also… 

  • Want to help us get this project to its destination? Please consider chipping in a few dollars toward priority shipping costs. You can donate cash at any of our events, or use our secure ActBlue online donation site.
  • A huge thank you to our partners and the organizations helping us make this project happen:
    • 1951 Coffee, founded in 2015, is a non-profit specialty coffee organization that promotes the well-being of the refugee community in the United States by providing job training and employment to refugees, asylees, and special immigrant visa holders while educating the surrounding community about refugee life and issues. You can support them by buying a cup of coffee in their cafes, buying or gifting their merchandise and whole bean coffees online, donating to support their services like the Barista Training Program, or volunteering at one of their open houses.
    • Sports Basement, Berkeley is hosting one of our drop boxes, and has hosted so many of our other meetings. If you shop there, please mention IEB and thank them!
    • And thank you to the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) Local 21 for letting us use their space to assemble our collage.

Fiona Woods, Ann Daniels and Amelia Cass contributed to this article

clumston Actions, Meetings, Newsletter, newsletter action, Uncategorized

Don’t deport people getting lifesaving care

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services acknowledged the obvious this week: its decision to end the humanitarian “deferred action” program for immigrants receiving lifesaving medical treatment in the US would cost lives. Faced with growing public outrage – and likely not wanting such obvious blood on its hands – the White House announced on Labor Day that it’s reconsidering this terrible decision. We hope that the medical deferred action status program will be renewed, but it’s far from certain, and we need to keep the pressure up! This is literally a matter of life and death to at least one East Bay family, and to an unknown number of others here legally in the US for medical treatment – read on below to find out what you can do, and for the story of Concord’s own Isabel Bueso, and more.

What you can do:

1. Speak out, spread the word, share the stories. At this time our most powerful weapon is public pressure on the administration to revoke the decision to end the humanitarian medical deferred action program.  However you engage with people – in person, by email, phone, on social media – share this link to our article. We don’t often post petitions, but you should share this one: it was started by Isabel’s mother Karla, and nearly 80 thousand people have already signed! The petition includes a lot of valuable information about Isabel and her situation, and even has a useful link for you to tweet directly to Trump.

2. Thank our Members of Congress who are working on behalf of Isabel and other people affected by this cruel action (see below). Let them all know how important this issue is to you, and ask them to do everything possible to protect immigrants.

  • Read the powerful letter spearheaded by CA-11 Representative DeSaulnier and Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley (news about the termination letters was first broken by Boston media). The August 30 letter to the heads of DHS, ICE, and USCIS, condemning the cruel action and raising critical questions, was signed by over 100 Members of Congress including Senators Feinstein and Harris and Reps. DeSaulnier and Lee.
  • Rep. DeSaulnier  and Senator Kamala Harris have been actively pursuing avenues that might allow Isabel and her family to remain in the US, including sending a letter asking Acting DHS Secretary McAleenan to reconsider the decision.
  • On September 3, Rep. DeSaulnier also introduced a private bill to allow Isabel to remain in the country.  The legislation, H.R. 4225, would provide Isabel and her family with permanent resident status so they can remain without fear of removal.
  • Sen. Dianne Feinstein: (email); (415) 393-0707 • DC: (202) 224-3841
  • Sen. Kamala Harris: (email); (415) 981-9369 • DC: (202) 224-3553
  • Rep. Mark DeSaulnier: (email); (510) 620-1000 • DC: (202) 225-2095
  • Rep. Barbara Lee: (email); (510) 763-0370 • DC: (202) 225-2661
  • Rep. Eric Swalwell: (email); (510) 370-3322 • DC: (202) 225-5065

3. Join one of the rallies in support of Isabel and other migrants, planned for this week:

  • The California Nurses Association has organized an Oakland rally to support Isabel outside UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital on Friday, September 6 from 12:30-1:15 PM.
  • Join students at CSU East Bay rallying on the lawn at Hayward City Hall on September 6 at 5 PM. Contact asipresident@csueastbay.edu for questions or volunteer opportunities.

640 Migrant Rights Rally hayward sept 6 flyer

More information:

Before the administration’s change of heart/attempt to prove that it actually has a heart, the Concord family of Isabel Bueso received notice that they could no longer stay in the US for the lifesaving treatment that Isabel receives here and cannot receive in the family’s home country of Guatemala. The family would have to leave within about a month, they were told, or face deportation. It’s not clear how many families got rejection letters of this sort, which cited no basis for the rejection and provided no means to appeal. It still isn’t clear whether Isabel – or any of the other families – can stay or must leave.

Isabel, a recent graduate of Cal State East Bay, has a rare illness, MPS-6, and was invited to our country from Guatemala with her family to participate in a clinical trial. For 16 years, she has received care at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland, and this care keeps her alive; read UCSF’s statement on Isabel’s possible deportation. Isabel and her family pay for her care through private insurance, and they renew their visas every two years. Since this treatment isn’t available in Guatemala, ending the deferred action program means cutting off Isabel’s ability to receive the weekly treatment that is keeping her alive.

Rachel Maddow ran a heartbreaking segment on Isabel’s story, and celebrities have taken up her cause. But it shouldn’t take celebrities or members of Congress to point out the obvious: it’s beyond outrageous to deport people who are legally in this country for lifesaving medical treatment most of them can’t receive in their countries of origin.

 

Ann Daniels and Heidi Rand contributed to this article

Photograph of Isabel Bueso by Garvin Tso