Congresswoman Judy Chu arrested at pro-DACA rally

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Demonstrators await their arrests Wednesday after attending a demonstration asking for a vote for the Dream Act.

ASAM NEWS contributed to this report

TWO MEMBERS OF CONGRESS -- Rep. Judy Chu, D-CA, and Rep. Luis Gutiérrez, D-Ill., —were among the 182 demonstrators arrested during a rally demandingt that Congress pass a clean Dream Act.

The arrests came after a rally and march to the Capitol where about 15,000 people called for a vote on the DREAM Act. Chu and Gutierrez were charged with “crowding, obstructing, or incommoding,” They were processed and released.

“‘Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.’ Those are the words written by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during his own, far more dire, arrest in Birmingham." said Chu after being released. She apparently was expecting to be arrested because Wednesday morning she had posted on social media that she was off to get arrested.

"And while my brush with the law today was planned and civil, those words from his famous letter continue to inspire our civil disobedience. Then it was on behalf of black citizens treated as less than human. Today it is on behalf of immigrants who are facing threats of deportation and separation from family and the only home they have ever known," said Chu, chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Concus.

Rep. Judy Chu of California.

“Black and AAPI Immigrant are joining hands on this historic day of action to reject the lie that our people are disposable and that we are each other’s enemies," said Jung Woo Kim speaking on behalf of the Korean Resource Center and the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium (NAKASEC). 

"We are centering and uplifting our own voices, hold elected officials accountable and demand a clean Dream Act and a permanent solution for TPS holders together. The time is now and congress needs to act on both before the end of the year,“ said Kim.

The protestors presented a petition of 400,000 signatures in support of DREAMers and TPS holders to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s, R-KY, Speaker Paul Ryan’, (R-WI, Senator Chuck Schumer’s, D-NY, and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s, D-CA Capitol Hill offices.

Under DACA, nearly 800,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children have been given work permits and protection from deportation. Trump wants to end the program by March 2018 and challenged Congress to come up with legislation to protect this group before the deadline.

"There is a bipartisan bill ready to be voted on that I know could gain a majority vote if only Speaker Ryan would let us bring it to the floor," said Chu. "We have tried everything from large scale rallies to a small meeting with the Speaker to make our case. But each time, we have been ignored. Today, I know our words were heard, but will Republicans have the courage to act on them? 

Trump’s decision to end TPS will impact 420,000 immigrants from over 10 countries, the majority of which have populations that are majority Black including Sudan, South Sudan, Haiti, Somalia, Yemen, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua. 

Activists said they hoped their rally would help destroy the stereotype that the black and Asian-Americans communities are at odds.

The protest was sponsored by the AAPI Immigrant Rights Organizing Table and UndocuBlack. The day of action by the two groups highlighted the exclusion of both Blacks and Asian/Americans from the immigration debate. It might signal more joint actions by the two ethnic groups that conservatives try to divide by using the Asian stereotype of the model minority myth against African/Americans.

“Black and Asian/Americans and Pacific Islanders] immigrants are joining hands on this historic day of action to reject the lie that our people are disposable and that we are each other’s enemies,” said Jonathan Jayes-Green, co-creator and national coordinator for the UndocuBlack Network.

"Through coalitions, we are stronger. By joining together, we increase our power tremendously,” Chu said.

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Asian American labor leaders among those arrested while urging Congress to vote on DREAM Act

Courtesy of APALA

Nineteen AAPI demonstrators were arrested at Speaker of the House Paul Ryan's office in Washington DC.

NINETEEN Asian/American peaceful protesters, including two of the highest-ranking Asian American leaders in the labor movement, were arrested in Washington D.C., while trying to meet with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.

"I stood with my sisters and brothers to be arrested today because the AAPI community can no longer stand idly by while Congress and the Trump administration criminalize immigrants and people of color, said SEIU Executive Vice President Luisa Blue, and founding member of Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO (APALA).

Protesters blocked the entrance of Ryan's office Wednesday, Nov. 15, and chanted that he move the Dream Act to a vote before Dec. 8. Those arrested include past and present leadership and APALA staff.

The arrests occurred in the first day of a two-day action is being held in coordination with the AAPI Immigrant Rights Organizing Table's Days of Mobilization to demand a clean DREAM Act. On the second day, the AAPI activists will be visiting with representatives in the House and Senate.

"More than 17,000 hard-working, law-abiding AAPI DACA recipients work and pay taxes in this country, and they now face being separated from their families and returned to the countries they left as children," said Blue, a Filipino/American labor leader. "Congress needs to pass a no-strings attached DREAM Act to protect 800,000 Dreamers, and act on behalf of our 300,000 sisters and brothers whose lives will be placed in limbo if Congress does not pass legislation extending Temporary Protected Status."

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"Our labor movement is ready to resist, organize, and fight back against hate. Today, I was proud to join eighteen other sisters and brothers on the front lines to say that the labor movement is not turning our backs on our undocumented community. The time to act is now, and we urge other organizers and leaders within the movement to join us in this fight for our freedom." added Johanna Puno Hester, AFSCME International Vice President, Assistant Executive Director of the United Domestic Workers of America, and immediate past president of APALA.

Donald Trump called for an end of President Obama-instigated Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program last September and asked Congress to write legislation to allow the children of undocumented immigrants to remain in the U.S., the only country they've known.

Courtesy of APALA

Nineteen AAPI demonstrators were arrested at Speaker of the House Paul Ryan's office in Washington DC.

After the Trump Administration announced the end to an executive branch program that has protected up to 800,000 undocumented immigrants since 2012, Democrats and Republicans have introduced several bills in Congress, each of which would provide a path to documented and legal residence.

Trump also announced that he would not formally suspend the program for another six months, in March 2018, giving Congress a six-month window to legislatively solve the issue. Even many Republicans — though certainly not all — support the idea of keeping DACA or at least some similar alternative in place.

The GOP-dominated Congress has been so distracted by three unsuccessful attempts to do away with the American Care Act and to pass significant legislation to address infrastructure improvements and tax reform, that the bills addressing the young immigrants' plight has gone to the wayside.

“It’s time to stop using the lives of immigrant youth as a bargaining chip in a cruel game of immigration politics,” said John C. Yang, president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC. “These fearless protesters represent a much larger and determined Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) population standing with and in support of getting the DREAM Act passed through Congress now.”

The bill most of the demonstrators support is  S. 1615  also known at the DREAM Act of 2017 that has garnered bipartisan backing. The Senate bill and its House counterpart, H.R. 3440, await action in the respective houses' Judicial Committees.

"Millions of undocumented working families live in fear of detention and deportation every single day," says current APALA President Monica Thammarath of the National Education Association (NEA).  

"The Trump administration continues to stoke fear into our immigrant and refugee communities, and today and every day until white supremacists are out of office, we will protect and defend our family, friends, and communities from hate violence, racism, and xenophobia.”

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