OMNI's War and Warming Anthologies: June 2021

Tuesday, June 29, 2021

28. WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, JUNE 30, 2021

Prevent Wars, Block US Aggression: Pass HR 256.
Defend Critical Media and Denounce US Censorship and Hypocrisy.
Roots of US Colonialism and Empire: Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and David Vine books reviewed by Michael E. Tigar

H.R. 256: PASSED!

Michael Galant 6-26-21

10:51 AM (1 hour ago)

Dick — It was just 18 months ago when Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani, bringing Iran and the United States to the brink of a catastrophic war.

The claimed legal authority to do so? An 18-year-old law authorizing the invasion of Iraq. What have these two things got to do with each other? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

Presidents and the Pentagon have refused to let go of the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) for years. That’s why what’s happening now is a big deal:

Last week, the House voted to repeal the 2002 AUMF, and President Biden has said he’s on board. Now, if the Senate agrees, we will finally tear this endless war law off the books — and we have a secret weapon up our sleeves.

The Senate is famously divided right now, but we’ve worked for years building bipartisan coalitions across Congress. In fact, the House bill to repeal the 2002 AUMF, H.R. 256, had 49 Republican votes. This is a fight we can WIN.

That’s why our team is working quietly in the corridors of the U.S. Capitol and loudly in the streets to win bipartisan Senate support to put this repeal on President Biden’s desk — and you can help.

Can you donate $15 right now to help us win this critical fight in our campaign to End Endless War?

. . .Seven years ago, we named our goal to build a progressive foreign policy focused on justice, safety, equity, and peace in a visionary campaign: END ENDLESS WAR.

The debate about our nation’s post-9/11 wars has never been the same. That’s why we are SO close to achieving this incredible milestone — and we can if we tip the dominoes in motion and repeal the 2002 AUMF now, and then move on to getting rid of the rest of the endless war laws on the books.

Thank you for working for peace,

Michael, Sara, Amisha, and the Win Without War team

US Shutting Down Opponents’ Press

U.S. Gov’t Seizes PressTV.com and Other Websites Linked to Iran. HEADLINE JUN 23, 2021

https://www.democracynow.org/2021/6/23/headlines/us_govt_seizes_presstvcom_and_other_websites_linked_to_iran

The United States government has seized dozens of website domains linked to Iran, including state-owned PressTV.com, a popular English-language news site. They also shut down Yemeni and Iraqi channels. Journalist and news host Rania Khalek tweeted, “If a country did this to US media outlets it would be seen as an act of war.”

Michael E. Tigar. “The Point Is to Change It.” Monthly Review (June 2021). Review of Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous People’s History of the United States (2015) and David Vine, The United States of War: A Global History of America’s Endless Conflicts, from Columbus to the Islamic State (2021).

(Jun 01, 2021).

We who are engaged in the struggle for change might ask: “Through what lens of refraction is the evidence of events recalled and related?” If we are to resist the genocidal use of military force, and to oppose the environmental depredation that follows in its wake, we need to see the roots and laws of motion of colonialism and empire | more…

Peacemakers

June 6, 1968, Robert Kennedy died by assassination. He wanted to end the Vietnam War and to tackle problems of race and poverty.

June 8 1966 and 1967 students walked out of graduation exercises at NYU and Brown U to protest the Vietnam War and presence of Pentagon Secretary Robert McNamara and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

June 10, 1963, President John F. Kennedy’s speech against war in the age of nuclear weapons.

June 11, 1880, Jeannette Rankin was born—pacifist, suffragist, Congresswoman who voted no against WWI and WWII.

From Peace Almanac

Monday, June 28, 2021

CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS, #29, jUNE 28, 2021

29. Climate Memo Mondays, June 28, 2021

The Great Adaptation: Climate, Capitalism and Catastrophe

by Romain Felli. Translated by David Broder. Verso, 2021.

Publisher’s description:

Bottom of Form

How capitalism wants us to adapt to climate change rather than stop it.
The Great Adaptation tells the story of how scientists, governments and corporations have tried to deal with the challenge that climate change poses to capitalism by promoting adaptation to its consequences, rather than combating its causes. Since the 1970s, neoliberal economists and ideologues have used climate change as an argument for creating more “flexibility” in society, for promoting more market-based solutions to environmental and social questions. This book unveils the political economy of this potent movement, showing how some powerful actors are thriving in the face of dangerous climate change and even making a profit out of it.

Laurence Shoup. “The Council on Foreign Relations, the Biden Team, and Key Policy Outcomes: Climate and China.” Monthly Review (May 2021).

Key Policy Outcomes: Climate and China

In the aftermath of the disastrous Trump years, there are numerous needed foci for the Biden administration, including the climate crisis, growing geopolitical conflict with China, COVID-19, economic recession, the need for democratic renewal, and confronting the ongoing racism and misogyny in U.S. society. I will focus on two key existential threats, the climate crisis and the growing conflict with China.

The Biden Administration and Green New Deal Proposals (pp. 13-15).

Almost fifteen years ago, the Green Party formulated the concept of the Green New Deal, aiming to achieve zero carbon emissions through creating sustainable green energy infrastructure while at the same time providing full employment at living wages, reducing economic inequality, and providing a “just transition.” Green candidates have had the Green New Deal as part of their platform in state and national elections since 2010. Due to the ongoing failure of the mainstream media to cover Green ideas and candidates, the Green New Deal concept only gained national attention when some Democratic Party officials recognized its value and began to advocate for a first-step version in 2018. But the Democrats, true to their neoliberal ideology, generally refused to go beyond advocating for market-based approaches.

     The partial exception was Senator Sanders, who endorsed the idea of public ownership of utilities, correctly arguing that the country needed to remove the profit motive from the distribution of essential needs like energy. This approach pinpointed the problem: it is the expand-or-die capitalist system that is primarily responsible for the climate crisis, which, if not confronted, will soon result in a planet uninhabitable for humans and other forms of life. But most other Democrats and virtually all Republicans refuse to cross the borderline between private enterprise and public ownership. They recognize that to do so would mark the end of business as usual, an end to the markets-above-all capitalist system that created the climate crisis in the first place. Continued plutocratic rule would be placed in question.
     Proper policy implementation of a robust Green New Deal must reflect the urgency of the climate crisis and the need to overcome the concentrated private power that caused it. Rather than market-based profiteering as a false solution, real answers are to be found in cooperation and collaboration to overcome the crisis and advance the common welfare through governmental institutions. There is a largely unknown U.S. history of public investment and government ownership to advance the public welfare during times of crisis, a history that can help convince people that it can be done again today as well as tomorrow. Just reviewing the history of nationalization in the United States since the First World War one can find numerous instances of government takeover, ownership, and management of enterprises in the national interest. For example, during the First World War, arms manufacturers, telephone, and railroad companies were nationalized by the Woodrow Wilson administration. During the Depression and the Second World War period, energy monopolies, railroads, coal mines, trucking companies, and even some department stores were all nationalized. Steel mills were nationalized during the Korean War. The savings and loan scandal during the 1980s provides yet another example. These governmental actions to put companies and industries under democratic control assured that production and distribution standards were met to serve the public interest. They involved a form of class politics; the interests of the corporate rich to make more profits were superseded by the needs of common welfare. Since the current mode of private ownership is incompatible with the need to prevent ecological collapse and assure the survival of humanity, it is urgently necessary to have a bold, robust Green New Deal, which would involve the nationalization and reconstruction of key parts of the U.S. economy along sustainable lines.
     The most recent and fully developed iteration of the Green New Deal is represented by the 2020 Green Party presidential campaign of Howie Hawkins. He proposed a two-part solution to the climate crisis that he estimated would cost $42 trillion over ten years, funded by progressive taxation, reduced military spending, public borrowing, and public money creation. The first part is Hawkins’s Green Economy Reconstruction Program. This would result in a 100 percent clean energy system by 2030, and would involve a reconstruction of all economic sectors of the U.S. economy for sustainability. Implementation would require social ownership of key sectors of the economy in order to democratically plan an inclusive federal public works project for everything from agriculture to manufacturing to housing to transport. The second part is focused on social justice and is called the Economic Bill of Rights, which includes guarantees for full employment at living wages, income above the poverty line, a decent home, comprehensive free health care, good public education, and secure retirement for everyone.¹⁴
    A smaller Green New Deal, but a still substantial program of public investment costing an estimated $16.3 trillion over ten years, was put forward by Democratic Party presidential candidate Bernie Sanders in the 2020 campaign. Sanders’s program involves some social ownership only in the electric power sector of the U.S. economy. Unfortunately, Sanders falsely stated that “greed,” not capitalism, was “at the very heart of the climate crisis.” Sanders did, however, stress that his program would provide millions of green jobs, social justice for those previously left out, cuts in military spending, and sharp reductions in carbon emissions.¹⁵
      In sharp contrast to Hawkins and Sanders is the Biden program, with only $2 trillion in spending projected so far. Nevertheless, Biden has been attacked by Republicans for his Green New Deal light program, which only proposes to eliminate coal, oil, and natural gas as electric energy sources by 2035. Another promise is to conserve 30 percent of the nation’s land and water by 2030. Biden aims for net zero emissions only by 2050 (almost thirty years from now, when an intensified climate crisis may make such promises moot); in contrast, the Hawkins and Sanders programs are focused on major changes by 2030. It is clear that Biden and his team are not taking the climate crisis seriously enough. The Biden plan is obviously not large enough to save our livable planet for humanity and other life forms. Also unclear is whether there will be enough activist and public pressure to force Biden and his team to expand their program to make it conform to the scale of the immense problem now facing humanity and our planet.
     The Biden team wants to continue with a modified neoliberalism, at a time when this ideology has demonstrably failed. The vast spending to keep the economy afloat and the obvious shortcomings of a public health care system based on private ownership and private profit illustrate this in the starkest terms. The scale of infections and deaths from COVID-19 in the United States is a form of social murder by the private profit “health care” system. Countries with a more collectivist governmental approach to public health (for example China, Taiwan, Cuba, Vietnam, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Australia, New Zealand), and not encumbered by the myths of “freedom,” have done a much better job of keeping the virus under control and saving lives than the United States. A new public health approach in the United States would prize equality, social justice, and health care for all over private profit for the few.

Wednesday, June 23, 2021

WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS #27

Paul Farmer.   Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds: Ebola and the Ravages of History.

     As we head into year two of the coronavirus pandemic, we ourselves are haunted by the specter of the social dimension of what looks on the surface—and is presented to us by government and media—like a medical or health crisis. In reality, it is only a medical crisis on one level. The COVID-19 pandemic is at its root a crisis of globalization, a crisis of racial capitalism, a crisis of colonialism, a crisis of the social organization of our public health system. It is a crisis of treatment and care versus demonization and wall building. 

     And it is the latest pandemic in a long line of modern ones—from SARS to swine flu to HIV to Ebola—a predictable and predicted outcome, not the mysterious unforeseeable lightning strike as it is often portrayed. The United States has reaped the results of market fundamentalism and the neoliberal wars on government and public space, when hospitals in the richest cities in the world proved incapable of treating the tidal waves of COVID-19 sufferers or even handling the dead with dignity. No one living through COVID-19 in the United States can be unaware of the social construct of its toll: infections and deaths among populations of color nearly double that of white people. Indigenous people account for more than double (2.3 times) the number of deaths.1 Whites in the United States have two to three times the vaccination rates of people of color, and still have far greater access to vaccines. Of those who have been vaccinated so far, two-thirds are white and only 2 percent are Black people.2

This article will be released in full online June 21, 2021. Current subscribers: please log in to view this article.

Monday, June 21, 2021

CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS, JUNE 21, 2021

28. Climate Memo Mondays, June 21, 2021

The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. 2020. Art told us about this book a few months ago, and OMNI’s PANDEMICS AND WARMING MOBILIZATION NEWSLETTER #1 (April 15, 2021) cited it, so this is a reminder. The review I read was by Rick Claypool and published in Public Citizen News (May-June 2021). He praises the book as “a welcome, hopeful vision” that “does not sugar-coat the challenges of the transition away from carbon.” The “overheating planet triggers catastrophes that kill millions,” while “corporations and the U.S. government actively resist change.” But the Ministry for the Future leads the way to plausibly overcoming our “death spiral” and creating a green new world. (Claypool is PC’s research director.) --Dick 6-14-21

Varshini Prakash, “Climate : For a Green New Decade.” The Nation (1-11/18-2021).

Prakash and Guido Girgenti edited the essays from leaders and experts championing the Green New Deal titled Winning the Green New Deal. Why We Must, How We Can.

John Bellamy Foster. The Return of Nature: Socialism and Ecology. 2020.

Publisher’s Description:

Twenty years ago, John Bellamy Foster’s Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature introduced a new understanding of Karl Marx’s revolutionary ecological materialism. More than simply a study of Marx, it commenced an intellectual and social history, encompassing thinkers from Epicurus to Darwin, who developed materialist and ecological ideas. Now, with The Return of Nature, Foster continues this narrative. In so doing, he uncovers a long history of efforts to unite issues of social justice and environmental sustainability that will help us comprehend and counter today’s unprecedented planetary emergencies.

The Return of Nature begins with the deaths of Darwin (1882) and Marx (1883) and moves on until the rise of the ecological age in the 1960s and 1970s. Foster explores how socialist analysts and materialist scientists of various stamps, first in Britain, then the United States, from William Morris and Frederick Engels to Joseph Needham, Rachel Carson, and Stephen Jay Gould, sought to develop a dialectical naturalism, rooted in a critique of capitalism. In the process, he delivers a far-reaching and fascinating reinterpretation of the radical and socialist origins of ecology. Ultimately, what this book asks for is nothing short of revolution: a long, ecological revolution, aimed at making peace with the planet while meeting collective human needs.

Sunday, June 20, 2021

United Nations WORLD REFUGEE DAY NEWSLETTER #10, June 20, 2021.

OMNI

United Nations WORLD REFUGEE DAY NEWSLETTER #10, June 20, 2021.

Compiled by Dick Bennett for a CULTURE OF PEACE, JUSTICE, and ECOLOGY

(Newsletter #1 June 20, 2008; #2 Dec. 4, 2011; #3 June 20, 2012; #4, June 20, 2014; #5, June 20, 2015; #6 June 20, 2017; #7, June 20, 2018; #8, June 20, 2019; #9, June 20, 2021).

http://omnicenter.org/donate/

UN World Refugee Day is held every year on June 20, a special day when the world takes time to recognize the desperate needs and the resilience of forcibly displaced people, and to plan ways to help them.

A time too to celebrate the UN for its idealism, compassion, and practical work.

CONTENTS

UNHCR: UN World Refugee Day 2021

UUSC Supports Refugees

UN Wire on Global Displacement

UN: Drought in North and South America

Book: Giles Slade, American Exodus

Audubon: Climate Action Guide: Is Your Town Ready?

Border Walls

Sheridan, “Immigrant Day of Resilience”

TEXTS

Google Search Results, Sunday, 6-20-21

World Refugee Day 2021: Five Facts You Need To Know About Refugees

UNHCR

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi's message on World Refugee Day - 20 June 2021

World Refugee Day 2021: Significance, history and theme

UNHCR - World Refugee Day

https://www.unhcr.org › world-refugee-day

2021 World Refugee Day theme: Together we heal, learn and shine. Access to health care and medical support saves lives.

World Refugee Day | United Nations - the United Nations

https://www.un.org › observances › refugee-day

Together we can achieve anything ... World Refugee Day 2021 focuses on the power of inclusion. The shared experience of COVID-19 has showed us that we only ...

Event: World Refugee Day 2021 | SDG Knowledge Hub | IISD

https://sdg.iisd.org › events › world-refugee-day-2021

2 hours ago — The year 2001 marked the 50th anniversary of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. The UN General Assembly therefore decided that 20 ...

World Refugee Day | About ALA - American Library Association

https://www.ala.org › aboutala › world-refugee-day

13 hours ago — On June 20, 2021, the world will observe the United Nations' (UN) World Refugee Day. This event honors the courage, strength and determination of women, ...

WORLD REFUGEE DAY - June 20, 2021 | National Today

https://nationaltoday.com › world-refugee-day

World Refugee Day – June 20, 2021 ... Each June 20, the globe comes together to honor World Refugee Day. The United Nations General Assembly launched the ...

World Refugee Day June 20 2021 | International Rescue ...

https://www.rescue.org › courage

Every World Refugee Day, we celebrate the contributions of refugees around the world. This year, we are proud to honor the courage of refugee artists who use ...

World Refugee Day - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › World_Refugee_Day

6 hours ago — World Refugee Day is an international day organised every year on 20 June by the United Nations. It is designed to celebrate and honour refugees from around ...

Observed by: World Wide

Related to: Refugee Week

Date: 20th June

Significance: Awareness day for Refugees; Anti ...

Videos

41World Refugee Day - UN Chief

YouTube · United Nations

UN Chamber Music Society Concert in Celebration of World ...

YouTube · UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency

20Refugees are courageous

International Rescue Committee · International Rescue Committee

World Refugee Day 2021: Significance, history and theme ...

https://www.hindustantimes.com › world-news › world-...

World Refugee Day 2021: Significance, history and theme ... World Refugee Day is observed every year on June 20 to respect and honour the ...

Related searches

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UUSC

Today Is World Refugee Day June 20, 2021

In search of safety and freedom, refugees face obstacles to rebuilding their lives in new surroundings after leaving home behind. UUSC has built a network of grassroots organizations around the globe who are working with families in migration to obtain asylum and assist with resettlement. Together, we are weaving systems of protection for refugees and other displaced people — today and every day. Your support ensures continued access to the necessary services to build a better future for themselves and their families. Here are a few ways our partners are making a difference in people’s lives.

In Mexico

UUSC partner Scalabrinianas Misión con Migrantes y Refugiados (SMR) welcomes people in migration to its shelter and responds to their immediate needs. In addition to a place to stay, clothing, and food, SMR provides legal assistance and job placement for those navigating their way through the difficulties of the asylum process.

In Burma (Myanmar)

The recent military coup is an extension of the relentless campaign by the Tatmadaw against ethnic and religious minority groups, like the Rohingya, who have faced persecution for decades. Following widespread violence and massacres in 2017, many Rohingya people fled the country while others were forcibly displaced to the Thailand-Burma border. Beyond food and shelter in neighboring refugee camps, UUSC's work focuses on education, social development, and Rohingya-led advocacy abroad.

In the United States

Immigration rights activists are building strong coalitions to help families escape the criminalization of their movement. UUSC contributes to this effort by directing our support to the Communities Not Cages campaign.

Through grant funding, mobilization of our members, and partnering with UU congregations, we aim to stop immigration detention and provide community-based alternatives. The coalition's goal is to shut down ten unjust and abusive detention facilities during the Biden administration's first year.

We know success is possible, because we've seen it happen recently: two facilities located in the counties of Bristol, MA, and Irwin, GA, have already ended their contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for holding families while their asylum claims are being processed.

Thank you for all you do to assist UUSC’s vital work to provide lifelines of support for refugees throughout the world.

Forward this message to a friend

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Unitarian Universalist Service Committee
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June 18, 2021

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News covering the UN and the world

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TOP STORY

Report: Global displacement hit record high in 2020

The number of people forcibly driven from their homes by violence, war or human rights violations climbed 4% in 2020 to hit a record high of 82.4 million -- and nearly one million children were born as refugees between 2018 and 2020, a report from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees states. "We are now in excess of one percent of humanity being forcibly displaced," says UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, noting that the number of displaced people has doubled over the last decade.

Full Story: Voice of America (6/18), The Independent (Bangladesh)/United News of Bangladesh (6/18)

mronline.org (4-19-20)

The parched West is heading into a global warming-fueled megadrought that could last for centuries.

Warmer temperatures and shifting storm tracks are drying up vast stretches of land in North and South America. | more…

UNDRR sounds alarm over rising drought risk

Drought has affected more people globally in the last 40 years than any other natural disaster, and drought-related disasters are becoming increasingly severe and more frequent as climate change accelerates, the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction reports. "Drought is on the verge of becoming the next pandemic and there is no vaccine to cure it," warns UN Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction Mami Mizutori.

Full Story: DAWN Media Group (Pakistan)/Reuters (6/18), Voice of America (6/17)

SEE OMNI CELEBRATES JUNE 17, 2021
UNCCD United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification www.unccd.int

https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2021/06/omni-celebrates-june-17-2021-unccd.html

UNCCD Desertification & Drought Day Special Issue

This book is almost a decade old, but its truths then persist today. American Exodus: Climate Change and the Coming Flight for Survival by Giles Slade. 2013.

Climate Action Guide

The Editors. Why Towns Should Prepare for the Climate Displaced.. Climate change is already causing people to relocate. As more hometowns become inhospitable, yours might be able to help. AUDUBON (Fall 2019).

Birds Tell Us to Act on Climate

Pledge to stand with Audubon to call on elected officials to listen to science and work towards climate solutions.

Sign the Pledge

This article is part of a special series from our fall 2019 climate issue on how you can level up your actions against climate change. Visit the full Climate Action Guide here. Coastal populations are on the front lines of climate change. According to Mathew Hauer, a demographer at Florida State University, 13 million Americans could be displaced by sea-level rise and natural disasters by 2100. About half will be Floridians (and a quarter Miamians). Louisiana, California, and the Carolinas will also be hard hit. But those facing floods, fires, and drought in the country’s interior might also need to abandon their homes, Hauer says. Abroad, the World Bank has estimated that 143 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and South Asia could be forced from their own countries by 2050. Surely a significant number will set out for the United States.

Is Your Town Ready?

Here are some questions your community should or might be asking itself. And, conveniently, the answers.

Q: Should we expect to receive climate migrants? People tend to move to familiar places nearby where they have friends or family, and where they’re going to be in a good economic situation. So if you’re in midsize, coast-adjacent, job-rich cities like Orlando, Atlanta, or Austin, you’ll probably see an influx first.

Q: Is there one main thing to focus on? Yes, affordable housing, since many of the people forced to move won’t be wealthy (those with money will have more options). Right now the United States is generally struggling to build affordable housing, so if you’re ready to advocate, that’s a good place to concentrate your efforts.

Q: What else can my town do to prepare? Climate migrants will require services of all kinds. Schools need to be ready to welcome new students. City social services need to be ready to provide counseling. If there’s a local nonprofit experienced with refugees, get involved. If not, start one yourself.

Q: What will climate migrants mean for my town?
A: In a positive way. Since at least the Great Recession, towns around the country have been looking for ways to jump-start their economies. Here’s a chance to welcome vibrant new communities to your town—people who can fill jobs, pay taxes, open restaurants and make art. And at the same time, you’ll be helping them out. Forward-thinking towns around the country see this as an opportunity.

Climate Migrants or Climate Refugees?

While the media sometimes refers to “climate refugees,” in international law that’s not a legal term. Refugee status—which accords certain protections—is reserved for those who fear persecution in their home countries. However, in December, UN member nations adopted the Global Compact on Migration. Written to promote safe and orderly migration in an age of incredible human movement, it notably recognizes climate as a cause. It’s not refugee-level protection, but it’s a start.

BORDER WALLS

The climate-migration-industrial complex. Mronline.org (1-18-20).

Thirty years ago there were fifteen border walls around the world. Now there are seventy walls and over one billion national and international migrants. International migrants alone may even double in the next forty years due to global warming. Source

UNA/USA

70.8 MILLION

Back to the wall. Mronline.org (10-16-19)

The same American myths that drove frontier expansion now support closing the borders.

Source

The first ever Immigrant Day of Resilience

Sheridan, United We Dream <info@unitedwedream.org> Unsubscribe

12:21 PM (0 minutes ago)

to me 5-4-21

Dick,

Last month, we celebrated the inaugural Immigrant Day of Resilience to honor the families who have been impacted by detention, deportation, police brutality, and COVID-19.

Back in April 2018, Attorney General Jeff Sessions signed into law the family separation policy that devastated immigrant communities for years. So this year, we reclaimed the month with a day of collective healing and transformation.

Immigrant youth from United We Dream joined allies and elected officials in Washington, D.C. to commemorate the first Day of Resilience to introduce a ceremonial resolution formalizing the day of celebration and unveil a mural by artist Shirien Damra.

The tragic murder of Daunte Wright and the pain resurfaced at the Derek Chauvin trial for the murder of George Floyd instill the reminder of deeply rooted white supremacy in all levels of law enforcement — and the criminalization of immigrant communities is no exception.

Black and brown immigrant communities especially have suffered immense trauma under racist policies and cruel policing at the hands of agencies like ICE and CBP. From being forcefully separated from family members to facing abuse in detention centers, the experience for undocumented immigrants is too often one of undue pain and suffering.

That’s why we fight to defund and abolish the deportation machine. And it’s why last month on April 15, we honored the resilience of all immigrants with a day of collective healing and transformation.

We’re fighting for a future where immigrants are no longer forced to be resilient in the face of detention and deportation and are instead welcomed freely. Will you chip in any amount meaningful to you to stand with all resilient undocumented immigrants and keep up our fight for a pathway to citizenship?

If you've saved your payment information with ActBlue Express, your donation will go through immediately:

EXPRESS DONATE: $10