Sign Up Here to Request Our Civil Rights Workshop
The immigration system in the United States is broken. Across the nation, over 2 million immigrants have been deported just during the Obama administration alone. This means that thousands of hard working immigrant families in New Mexico have experienced the devastation of being torn apart from their families. These are our family members, neighbors, co-workers, classmates, small business owners, tax-payers, and those we pray with at church.
Now more than ever, EL CENTRO finds the inherent value of our communities becoming a collective, conscious, free and powerful force dedicated to the promotion of human rights. We seek to empower communities through interactive know-your-rights workshops. The objective is to provide essential tools for different communities to defend their civil rights, hold law enforcement/ICE accountable and fight against the criminalization of our communities. Some of the tools involve but are not restricted to:
*information about your rights with law enforcement and federal immigration agents
*dialogue about how we are fighting back and organizing against deportation/enforcement programs;
*emergency family plans
Know Your Rights To Protect Your Family
Trump has said he will deport millions, and anti-immigrant harassment is already out of control. Now more than ever it is important for our families and communities to come together and fight for each other. El CENTRO has developed the following toolkit in collaboration with other organizations across the state and nationwide:
El CENTRO has prepared the following toolkit in collaboration with other organizations across the state and that nation. This toolkit package includes know-your-rights information, family emergency plan form, power of attorney, and “rights cards.” Now more than ever, it is important to KNOW YOUR RIGHTS in order to continue protecting our families and communities.
Remember you can always reach El CENTRO by calling us at (505) 246-1627.
Click here to learn about options for beneficiaries of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS)
DOWNLOAD THE APS POLICE SUMMARY – IMMIGRANT STUDENTS COMPILED BY EL CENTRO
Did you know APS has policies and procedural directives to protect APS students and their families?
El CENTRO put a detailed summary of APS official policies and procedures with links to the official documents on the APS website.
Comprehensive Immigration Reform
Since our inception, El CENTRO has taken the lead in Albuquerque to organize immigrant communities, faith leaders, small businesses, elected officials, and voters to advocate for the passage of comprehensive immigration reform by Congress that: keeps families together, includes a path to citizenship for our families, protects and restores key civil rights protections, maintains workers’ protections, reunites families and reduces immigration backlogs, provides opportunities for safe future migration, and does not criminalize immigrants through flawed enforcement programs.
To get involved in El CENTRO’s efforts to fight for the fair immigration policies implementation, call us at (505) 246-1627, like us on Facebook, and become a member!
It makes me angry that because of extremists with an anti-immigrant agenda, thousands of New Mexicans haven’t been able to apply for DACA yet. Our communities already contribute so much to New Mexico and we fight until these programs are implemented so that we can contribute even more.
– Ingrid Ordoñez
POLIMIGRA
In recent years, there has been a drastic rise in immigration enforcement that tears families apart and a marked shift in its implementation. In the past, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) utilized tools such as workplace raids to detain and eventually deport thousands of noncitizens. Today, ICE identifies non-citizens mainly by relying upon local and state law enforcement and the criminal justice system and creating an airtight pipeline to deportation. Programs such as Secure Communities (S-Comm), and the Criminal Alien Program (CAP) resulted an all-time high of deportation (409,849 in 2012). These programs also fomented racial profiling, pre-textual arrests, had a chilling impact on community policing efforts, and used limited local public safety resources to identify and detain immigrants who pose no public safety risk.
As immigration enforcement ratcheted up, so has advocacy across the nation and locally. El CENTRO has been at the the forefront of campaigns in Albuquerque and Bernalillo County to fight back against immigration enforcement programs and protect our communities.