Thread: joseph bearden: Choosing Hope over Fear

New America Media, Commentary, Evelyn Sanchez and Angela Chan, Posted: Jan 21, 2009 [Review it on NewsTrust]

Editor’s Note: The legacy of fear and violence from the Bush administration’s immigration policies can now give way to hope and a reasoned approach to solving the problems of reform. Evelyn Sanchez is the executive director of the Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition, and Angela Chan is a juvenile justice attorney with the Asian Law Caucus.

Most San Franciscans agree that the Bush administration leaves a legacy of failed and dysfunctional policies–among the most notable, a broken immigration system. The Bush immigration policy has relied almost solely on one approach: detention and deportation of alleged undocumented immigrants, who were apprehended (often along with lawful residents and even citizens) in violent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in neighborhoods all over our country. The raids have left broken families and fearful communities in their wake.

Here in San Francisco, we saw the consequences of this sad legacy when the two-decades old Sanctuary Ordinance and other progressive, well-reasoned policies began to unravel over the past year under the weight of eight years of Bush doctrines.

Under the threat of prosecution by the U.S. Attorney General for the Northern District of California Joseph Russoniello, San Francisco quickly rescinded its longstanding policy toward undocumented youth in the juvenile system and replaced it with one that deprives youth of due process, resulting in some 100 youths being referred by San Francisco officials to ICE thus far. The policy of brute enforcement overcame longstanding local policies that recognized the public safety benefits and sheer good sense of building an inclusive community and the due process rights of every human being. The deportation of immigrant youth, coupled with raids in homes, near schools, and in workplaces, made fear a common emotion among immigrants, here in our city and elsewhere.

With President Barack Obama leading a new administration, we have turned a page in our nation’s history. By asking us to let hope, not fear, guide us, he has challenged us to think differently about how to best solve our problems. Problems are not solved when people are afraid, when they aren’t sure how they are going to earn a living or keep their children safe. Fear does not inspire compassion or compromise, and certainly does not inspire trust. In contrast, hope is an undeniably better inspiration for problem solving, and has always been a driving force in the immigrant community. Immigrants are part of our communities and they are part of many of our families. If we are going to solve our problems, and create just and humane policies toward immigrants, policies that we can be proud of, we are going to have to let hope lead us there.

Today, a coalition of groups that has been working with San Francisco’s supervisors, community leaders, social service providers, and faith groups is gathering at City Hall to call for a halt to the raids and for support of fair and humane immigration reform. We will be joining our voices with thousands of others across California
and across our country who found hope in the words of our new President Barack Obama during his inauguration speech:

We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

These are deeply inspiring words of hope to America’s immigrants, and they call on us to recognize our common humanity and to work together fearlessly to address our most complex problems in the hardest of times. Today, as we hold a vigil in front of City Hall in support of fair and humane immigration policies, we have taken the first steps in this new era towards hope for our country and for our city, and for those who wish to find and build their dreams here with us.

Original Link:

http://unitedstatesean.blogspot.com/200 ... -fear.html

Tags: joseph bearden

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I find it interesting that what they failed to mention about these poor, victimized "immigrant youths" is that the majority of them are not youths at all but short statured adults of a specific Latin American heritage.

These "youths" are notorious criminals in ultra-lib SF which have been, for years, aidied and abetted in getting away with their crimes by the public office holders in SF.

Wonder if the paper would print that little FACT.

"Immigrants are part of our communities and they are part of many of our families. "




What this is actually is the people who had the primary responsibility for improving the economies of the sending areas legal immigrant families who instead financed illegal immigration claiming the presence of the people they brought in have a right to remain here since now they are here.