[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]After yesterday’s announcement that the White House is terminating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, groups rallied in front of the Department of Justice to condemn Attorney General Jeff Sessions for his role in ending DACA and promoting hyper discriminatory, anti-immigrant, and pro-prison practices.
Groups Mijente, Organized Communities Against Deportations (OCAD), Juntos, United We Dream, LCLAA, and GLAHR (Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights) and others collaborated to organize the rally, with approximately 200 people in attendance.
What Happened?
Members of the immigrant community spoke out against the racist attack on undocumented DREAMers, including Genoveva Ramirez, an Illinois grandmother ordered to be deported next month. Ramirez emphasized that Sessions should have no place in the Department of Justice, white supremacists should have no place in the White House, and the urgency of rising up against attacks on our communities. The rally set a tone of fierce resolve, with high-energy chants and calls for continued resistance.
Undocumented and un-afraid! #DefendaDACA pic.twitter.com/kfF1rETBgS
— Mijente 🐜🐜🐜 (@ConMijente) September 6, 2017
"Trump and Sessions should be scared, they have awakened all of us" @MariaQSanchez #DefendDACA #ExpandSanctuary
— Juntos (@Vamos_Juntos_) September 5, 2017
Tearing down @Jeffsessions and white supremacy – neither have any place in our government or our society @ConMijente @GoIUPAT @LCLAA #1u
— IUPAT Organizing (@JoinIUPAT) September 6, 2017
The Take-Down
Following the speak outs, community members erected and pulled down a statue of Jeff Sessions, calling him a living monument of the Confederacy that needs to be taken down.
TAKE DOWN SESSIONS! @jeffsessions @TheJusticeDept #ConfederateDOJ #DefendDACA pic.twitter.com/kuxnD8zg7r
— Mijente 🐜🐜🐜 (@ConMijente) September 6, 2017
Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III is named after Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy and P. G. T. Beauregard, the Confederate Army’s first General who started the Civil War. True to his name, Sessions was determined to be ‘too racist’ to be a federal judge in 1986 and is now pushing the Department of Justice to take a more active and heavy-handed role in driving deportations as the U.S. Attorney General under Trump. Revoking DACA is the latest of his aggressively racist and discriminatory moves as Attorney General including:
- Reinstating private prison contracts to prepare for “future needs”
- Instructing US attorneys to seek maximum penalties and prosecute immigrants for “re-entry,” in line with a 1930s era law created by South Carolina Senator Coleman Livingston Blease, who was pro-lynching and sought to keep Mexicans out of the U.S.
- Waging attacks on Affirmative Action at colleges and universities
- Arguing that civil rights law does not apply to sexual orientation
- Threatening sanctuary cities
During a time when our news feeds are overwhelmed by a never-ending stream of crises, it helps to remind ourselves that there are specific individuals who are responsible for systems escalating the violence we are seeing across the U.S. and, as the old saying goes, they have names and addresses. Today’s demonstration did exactly that by naming Jeff Sessions as the racist monument that he is and insisting we take him down.
More on the Rally
Check out more highlights and the full livestream of the rally below.
Our families do not deserve to be terrorized by @jeffsessions and his racist policies! #ConfederateDOJ #DefendDACA pic.twitter.com/rDSxx70Pe1
— Mijente 🐜🐜🐜 (@ConMijente) September 6, 2017
"I'm angry. Sessions and Trump are cowards. They are scared of the leadership we bring to the country." @MariaQSanchez #defenddaca #phled pic.twitter.com/4Y2uXVLBPo
— PFT (@PFTLocal3) September 5, 2017
“As long as we are standing, as long as we are breathing, we will continue fighting.” -Olivia Vasquez @Vamos_Juntos_ #DACA rally
— Elizabeth Fiedler (@Fiedler4Philly) September 5, 2017
"If #DACA is taken away, remember we are the reason we had it in the first place!" – #OlivaVaquez @juntos #DefendDACA @kywnewsradio #dreamer pic.twitter.com/MvQrtjkPAh
— Cherri “I'm Just Here for the Comments” Gregg (@cherrigregg) September 5, 2017
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.777538839095514.1073741843.446813398834728&type=1&l=81990b562e
https://www.facebook.com/conmijente/videos/777496775766387/
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Born and raised in Miami, Belinda Rodriguez is a Cuban-American organizer and activist based in Pittsburgh, PA. She is a member of Mijente’s CommSquad.
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