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April 11, 2022
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jose Torres-Don
Mobile: 512-744-8804
Email: jose.torresdon@gmail.com
NC DREAM Team Supports RECLAIM NC Act:
Coming Out of the Shadows
RALEIGH, NC—The North Carolina DREAM Team (NCDT) supports Republican led initiatives for continued dialogue on immigration matters in North Carolina. On Wednesday, Republican Representatives Warren, Jordan, Brown and Collins filed House Bill 786-the RECLAIM NC Act that includes a process for bringing undocumented immigrants in NC out of the shadows through a driving permit. As undocumented people we are living through the consequences of the failed promises in the past decade from the national Democratic Party on immigration reform. We welcome this initiative from NC Republicans as a signal of their better understanding of the value in this opportunity to move North Carolina forward in a way that is inclusive of the Hispanic Community. We call on the leadership of this state, both Republicans and Democrats, to resist the bullying tactics of extreme anti-immigrant factions and arrive at reasonable policies in the best interest of the state’s economy and public safety.
In the summer of 2006 NC changed its laws that made it impossible for our undocumented families to obtain or renew driver’s licenses. This change was made under the leadership by then Democratic Governor, Mike Easley, who signed the Technical Corrections Act on August 27th, 2006. In the years that have followed, undocumented community members have been and continue to be deported as a result of not being able to produce a driver’s license. We intend to fully engage in conversation on initiatives from both, Republicans and Democrats, for the possibility of a driving permit. All legislators must propose and pass meaningful legislation that elevates outcomes over false rhetoric of hope. We welcome all initiatives independent of party affiliation.
To address the concerns that this proposal sounds like a round ‘em up and deport ‘em type of policy, our everyday lives remind us that this is vigorously happening already to our community under the leadership of the national Democratic Party. NCDT member, Viridiana Martinez, 26, previously detained in an immigrant detention center in Florida experienced first-hand such destructive policies of the Obama administration. Martinez states, “there is a cruel deceptiveness in the “low priority for deportation” directive from Obama that is nothing more than a talking point… we seek an alternative to the status quo”. Currently NCDT is rallying to stop the Deportation of dedicated grandfather and Boy Scouts soccer coach, Eduardo Mireles Salazar (Alien Number: 200-717-517), who has been ordered deported from North Carolina as a result of merely driving without a license. For Coach Salazar and the many others that go unnoticed, we support Representatives Warren, Jordan, Brown and Collins in their initiative to seek better solutions.
We are aware there are problematic provisions within the proposed bill and we intend to provide our voice to that discussion so that there is understanding of the community directly affected. The NC DREAM Team looks forward to having a bigger conversation about the enlightened self-interest for Republicans in NC to align with the national leadership of the GOP that has signaled a more reasonable approach in dealing with immigration and with that fostering a better relationship with a growing Hispanic political base.
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The NC DREAM Team is an organization composed of undocumented immigrant youth and allies who are dedicated to the creation of a sustainable, community-led immigrant rights movement in North Carolina. We aim to help undocumented youth recognize their individual and collective power to activate their communities.
After NC’s undocumented youth made headlines and exposed our state’s house select committee on immigration this past February, the committee reported yesterday that it is the federal government’s responsibility to “address the symptoms whose problem is really rooted in federal policy”. We couldn’t agree more, Speaker Tillis, the Obama administration needs to get it together. Quick.
Immigration Committee’s meeting on February 2012
North Carolina’s Republican leadership has made an intelligent analysis and appears to be approaching the matter with care. However, our state’s leadership remains far from opening its arms to recognize the contributions undocumented immigrants bring to North Carolina. To be specific, we are still charged at the out-of-state tuition rate at all public colleges and universities despite paying in-state taxes, we remain prohibited from obtaining driver licenses, and business owners’ woes are increasing because they need and want the hard labor of illegal immigrants but run the risk of being criminalized for hiring us. So much for free enterprise, right, Jesse Helms?
The report released yesterday by the committee indicates undocumented youth, our families and allies have left a mark. The North Carolina Dream Team welcomes the leadership of both Republicans and Democrats to pass legislation that will open the doors for all undocumented workers, students, and families - many of whom are families of mixed status. As individuals, families, and communities-illegal and all-we are not backing down. We’ll continue fighting to be recognized as contributing residents of North Carolina.
Today, Estephania Mijangos, Cynthia Martinez, & Uriel Alberto rose their voices for our undocumented immigrant community. We need your help to get them out of detention and your calls are extremely important to make this happen. Like Senators Durbin and Reid often do, please ask our own representatives and senators to take action and intervene on their behalf and ask them to drop their ICE holds.
Photo courtesy of La Conexion
Cynthia Martinez: A#200-203-134, Estephania Mijangos: A#05-213-502, Uriel Alberto: A#089-828-718
Call Sen. Kay Hagan: (202) 224-6342
Call Rep. Brad Miller: (202) 225-3032
Call Rep. David Price: (202) 225-1784
Script: “Hello, My name is__________, and I am calling on behalf of_________, with an A-Number____________. I am asking that, like Senators Reid and Durbin often do, __________ (insert Senator/Representative) intervene on their behalf and ask ICE to drop the hold immediately. Thank you.”
Please check back in for further updates and ways to help us get the #Raleigh3 released immediately!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 29, 2022
Contact: Viridiana Martinez (919)704-0599
Youth Come Out as UNDOCUMENTED and UNAFRAID in NC Legislature
Undocumented Youth Face Anti-Immigrant Committee in NC Legislature
As the newly developed Standing House Committee on the State’s Role on Immigration works on drafting a comprehensive anti-immigrant plan for NC, undocumented youth are determined to drop the fear and face the members of this committee by showing up at the committee’s meeting and making themselves heard.
“My name is Uriel Alberto; I am undocumented, unafraid, and unashamed!” Uriel is an undocumented youth who is determined to be present at the committee’s meeting. When asked why he simply states “I refuse to be bullied and intimidated by this committee and choose to empower my community.”
This will be the third of a total of six meetings that this committee will have. These committee meetings are open to the public and like in the past two meetings a large number of anti-immigrant supporters are expected. The environment that these undocumented youth will be in will be a hostile one.
NC DREAM Team and other undocumented youth will show presence in tomorrow’s meeting in an effort to stop the spread of Arizona SB 1070 copycats across the south and a possible similar bill draft for NC.
Where: 16 West Jones St. Raleigh, NC 27601; ROOM 643 Legislative Office Building,
When: 1:00 pm, 2-29-2012
What: Undocumented Youth Face Anti-Immigrant Committee in NC Legislature
Who: NC DREAM Team
# # #
Contact: Jose Rico Benavides (919) 802-0508
dreamteamnc@gmail.com
ncdreamteam.org
NC DREAM Team Issues Strong Rebuke of Dale Folwell’s Candidacy for Lt. Governor
Candidate is anti-woman, anti-family, and anti-immigrant
RALEIGH—The NC DREAM Team is strongly opposed to Rep. Dale Folwell (R-Forsyth) seeking statewide office. Folwell is a man with hate in his heart who believes the state’s best days are in the past.
“This is a man who has dedicated his life to harassing women, LGBTQ people, and immigrants,” said Viridiana Martinez, a member of the NC DREAM Team. “We will not be silent while Folwell continues his hateful and bigoted crusade.”
Folwell is proud of his record of rolling back the individual liberties of people who aren’t like him. With the Women’s Right to Know law, Folwell forces upon women his opinion of what they should do with their bodies when they seek an abortion. With the anti-family amendment, Folwell will attempt to ensure that only his antiquated definition of a family is recognized by the state. With the anti-immigrant bills he has supported, Folwell intends to criminalize people for feeding their families and going to school.
Folwell is not a man who can lead our state into the future; he is a man who wants to confine it to the past. As the immigrant youth of North Carolina, we stand against his candidacy. We urge all people of conscience in the state-and those who believe in the state’s future-to do the same.
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The NC DREAM Team is an organization composed of undocumented immigrant youth and allies. We are dedicated to the creation of a sustainable, community-led immigrant rights movement in North Carolina. We aim to help undocumented youth recognize our individual and collective power to activate our communities. We also aim to create awareness of the broader struggle for social justice. We will escalate in our efforts to achieve a just reform that is acceptable to–and guided by–the voices of those directly affected by our broken immigration system.
The only way I can start this post is by asking you to sign the petition. Go on, sign it. This is something that’s just plain wrong.
HB 744 does something despicable: it attacks undocumented children. Before enrolling (which means we’re often talking about little, little kids), parents have to present school officials with information on the immigration status of the child. While the sponsor of the bill, Rep. Dale Folwell from Forsyth County, NC claims that it is meant for the sole purpose of determining the amount spent on undocumented youth, everybody knows this is meant to discourage children from being enrolled. It’s so obvious that even he let the cat out of the bag when he spoke to the Winston-Salem Journal:
Folwell said, however, that policies must change to prevent illegal immigrants from choosing North Carolina as their home.
“The main thing I want is to answer the question: What policies are there at the state level that are making North Carolina a magnet for illegal immigration?” Folwell said. “I want to demagnetize this state.”
This was the sixth time Folwell has introduced the bill in the four terms he has served in the state General Assembly.
The only way this bill would “demagnetize” the state is if it scares people away, making it pretty clear that Folwell is trying to find a way around Plyler v. Doe. Under Plyler, public school systems are required to educate students irrespective of their immigration status. The Department of Education and the Department of Justice sent out a strongly worded letter reminding state and local educational agencies of their obligation to educate everyone who walks into their classroom. Instead of trying to kick them out, Folwell and his gang of foamed-mouth restrictionists are trying to find a way to make sure they don’t walk in at all.
What makes this even more shameful is that the following day, NC Republicans read another “restrictionist” bill, HB 36, which expands the use of E-Verify in the state. However, while all of Folwell’s vitriol toward children counts as “getting tough” on immigration, supporters of HB 36 completely rolled over when it came time to get tough on farm labor. It’s easy to “get tough” on school children behind whom no moneyed interests lie, but when you might be looking for handouts from the farm lobby in just a few months’ time, your compassion can be bought.
If you haven’t signed the petition by now, please do. We need you here in the South.
Contact:
José Rico (919) 802-0508
dreamteamnc@gmail.com
ncdreamteam.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Cowards in the General Assembly Propose Bill Attacking Children
NC DREAM Team vows to stop the attacks on undocumented youth
RALEIGH, NC—Although not a single “restrictionist” bill in the General Assembly has addressed the biggest employers of undocumented immigrants in the state—state farms—several bills have attacked school children and college students. By proposing HB 744, a bill that would force students to reveal their status to school officials, North Carolina legislators are telling undocumented immigrants working and living in our state that they are good enough to pick its residents’ food, but not good enough to sit next to them in class.
“Our communities are under attack,” said Viridiana Martinez, an undocumented immigrant who has been an active fighter for immigrant rights. “We will expose this nasty bill and everyone behind it.”
Anti-immigrant groups frequently lament the 1982 Supreme Court decision of Plyler V. Doe, which protects the right of undocumented students to attend public education through high school. However, legislators in the segregationist South have begun to find new ways to direct their prejudice at school children. The Alabama State Senate passed a bill that would ban undocumented immigrants from attending extracurricular activities like prom and afterschool sports. NC Republicans also refused to make an exception in the Matricula Consular bill, HB 33, for educators to accept the Matricula to identify the parents of children at the school, both citizen and non-citizen.
Earlier this month, US Department of Education had to remind school districts of their obligation to provide an equal education to undocumented immigrant children. The DOE released a letter (co-signed by the Department of Justice) stating that “Recently, we have become aware of student enrollment practices that may chill or discourage the participation, or lead to the exclusion, or students based on their or their parents’ or guardians’ actual or perceived citizenship or immigration status. These practices contravene Federal law.”
Requiring children to register their immigration status with their schools will inevitably result in discrimination, harassment or exclusion. Plain and simple, the legislators who support these bills are unprincipled cowards.
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According to Immigration Clearing House, Rep. Rick Glazier (D-Cumberland) upbraided the President of the nativist Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC) for sending an email to all of the members of the General Assembly which described those who voted against HB 33 as traitors.
“This e-mail is ugly and it is hateful and it is vicious and it is despicable against two extraordinary honorable members of this body who I have a great and deep respect for not to mention all the members on this side.”
Read it all here
Representative George Cleveland (R – Onslow) has introduced HB 11, a bill that would ban undocumented immigrants from North Carolina’s public universities and community colleges. The NC DREAM Team is asking for opponents of this bill to call Speaker Thom Tillis (R – Mecklenburg) and urge him to prevent the bill from making it to the House floor (call 919-733-3451).
Yesterday a member of the NC DREAM Team sent an e-mail expressing their disappointment in the legislation. “It is saddening that one of our state’s representatives would go out of their way to deny a segment of our state’s population the right to educate and better themselves,” said Ian Smith-Overman, the member who sent the e-mail. “I believe your decision to sponsor this bill is short-sighted at best and vindictive at its worst.”
Rep. Cleveland responded within five hours. “I find it revolting that an American thinks that we should financially support people that cannot legally work in this country through taxpayer subsidized education,” he said. “If you feel so strongly about this issue find an illegal and pay for their education at a private university.”
The response from Rep. Cleveland demonstrates that he is not aware that the North Carolina Department of Revenue collects income tax from undocumented immigrants using Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers, or ITINs, which have been issued by the Internal Revenue Service since 1996. The NC DREAM Team believes that undocumented immigrants not only have a right to attend public post-secondary education in North Carolina, but should also only pay in-state tuition as tax-paying state residents.
While the North Carolina economy depends heavily on immigrant labor, particularly in the agriculture and meat-processing industries, the state has continued to march toward policies that harass the communities working in those industries or prohibit their economic advancement through education. In the past ten years, agreements between immigration officials and local police departments that expand police power such as 287(g) and Secure Communities have continued to proliferate across the state; drivers’ licenses are no longer issued to immigrants without visas; and undocumented youth who most often had no say in their migration to North Carolina as minors are forced to pay out-of-state tuition and register last in community colleges.
