Caravans will be forming in the Mid-Willamette Valley to support the hunger strikers. A key day for mobilizing may be next Saturday. We call on everyone to be in solidarity with the hunger strikers and to take coordinated and disciplined united action with the lead groups listed below. Please make this a priority in your social justice, anti-racist, labor solidarity and immigrant support work.
Hunger strike spreads to two states
ICE’s attempt to break strike greeted with resistance in Oregon
Dear friends and supporters,
Communities in Washington and Oregon are under direct attack by anti-immigrant policies, and your help is urgently needed to support the resistance.
For three weeks, more than 750 immigrants detained at the for-profit Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington have been on a courageous hunger strike to protest inhumane living conditions. We know the strike is having an impact because ICE (Immigration & Customs Enforcement) has retaliated by transferring some of the strikers to the Northern Oregon Regional Correctional (NORCOR) Facility in The Dalles, Oregon – a community where Rural Organizing Project has supported local organizing for human dignity for 25 years.
Local and national immigrant-rights movement leaders as well as a growing coalition of local groups in the Gorge have asked Rural Organizing Project to work on the ground in The Dalles to help coordinate the support for the NORCOR hunger strikers.
INHUMANE TREATMENT
The conditions inside NORCOR are unconscionable. Hunger strikers are protesting conditions In NORCOR including only having access to one hot meal per day at most, and not being allowed to work and therefore cannot afford phone calls which cost $0.25/min. They cannot see outside. They do not have socks. They get milk once per week.
ILLEGAL FACILITY
NORCOR is a public jail serving four counties that is violating state law by using Oregon public facilities to enforce federal immigration law. NORCOR’s participation in the federal deportation process violates ORS 181A.850, which prevents state and local police from using Oregon public resources in enforcing federal immigration law. Attorneys from the ACLU of Oregon are working with the coalition and the hunger strikers to demand enforcement of this law. In the meantime, we must do everything we can to support the hunger strikers inside the jail.
THE TIME TO ACT IS NOW
This is a rapidly developing situation with rural Oregonians in The Dalles and across the Gorge mobilizing to answer this call to action. We need office supplies, we need coffee, we need dollars, and we need volunteers to amplify the courageous message the hunger strikers are sending. We need groups from around the state to come to The Dalles to demonstrate their solidarity with the hunger strikes in person as part of daily rolling actions. We want Attorney General Rosenbaum and Governor Brown to shut down ICE at NORCOR and we want the strikers’ demands answered.
Please join us in action! Email your commitments to hungerstrike@rop.org:
I will act peacefully and take direction from local leadership.
I will bring a delegation to support this critical protest. Please contact hungerstrike@rop.org to coordinate.
I will come to The Dalles to help with on-the-ground volunteer tasks.
I will volunteer my skills and time from home to make calls, coordinate logistics, or spread the word.
I will call Attorney General Rosenbaum and Governor Brown.
I will donate to support the work happening in The Dalles. Click here to donate.
Click here to sign up for updates on the NORCOR Hunger Strike.
In solidarity,
Rural Organizing Project, PCUN, Causa, Voz Workers’ Rights Education Project, APANO (Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon), ACLU of Oregon, Unite Oregon, OPAL Environmental Justice Oregon, Interfaith Movement for Immigrant Justice
No comments:
Post a Comment