To: Janet Napolitano, United States Secretary of Homeland Security
Janet Napolitano: Stop Deporting Labor Organizers
Your agency’s policy, as outlined in the June 17 prosecutorial discretion memo, states that people “pursuing legitimate civil rights complaints” should not be targeted in order “to avoid deterring individuals from … pursuing actions to protect their civil rights.”
But, the Southern regional ICE office in New Orleans refuses to implement the policy and continues to pursue the deportation of the Southern 32.
Please, stop deporting labor and civil rights defenders! You must stand up and tell your agents to stop ignoring this important policy.
We demand that ICE:
1) Release the Southern 32 from all threats of deportation
2) Implement the civil, labor, and human rights provisions of its prosecutorial discretion policy; and
3) Ensure no future civil or labor rights defender is deported because he or she stood up for the rights of all of us!
Why is this important?
Right now 32 civil rights and labor organizers in the South are facing deportation just because they stood up for their rights. This is not only morally wrong, but it also violates a new policy issued last year by the Obama Administration.
Yet, immigration officials in charge of 5 Southern states, with a long history of civil rights abuses, are refusing to go along with the new policy. Their boss – Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano -- has done nothing about it.
You can help the Southern 32 and immigrants across the country who’ve stood up for civil, labor, and human rights by telling Janet Napolitano to stop deporting these leaders and make sure her agents are actually implementing agency policies.