Week Six: Seeking Solutions

Handout 1: We Are One
Handout 2: Chronological Summary of UUA Statements on Immigration
Handout 3: Liberation Theology
Handout 4: Interfaith Platform on Humane Immigration Reform
Handout 5: Who is My Neighbor?

This is the end of the materials prepared by the UUA.  They will stay on-line until the end of the program year at the end of May, 2011.  Whether you have read them all or not, please join in on the meeting at FUS on Monday, Feb. 21, 7:00 p.m., Heritage Room.  The purpose of this meeting is to address these questions:

1) In studying this issue, what findings were most surprising or compelling?
2) Why is this an important issue for UUs?
3) What were the most interesting aspects of our congregation's process?
4) What concepts need to be included in the statement of conscience on this issue so that it is complete?
(This statement is available on the UUA website and will be available at the mtg. on 2/21.

Week Five: Who Benefits From A Broken System?

Announcement:  All are invited to come to a meeting to discuss our feedback to the UUA regarding this study guide and this topic on Monday Feb. 21, FUS, 7:00, Heritage Room

Handout 1: Don't Be Fooled:  Immigration is NOT the Real Problem
Handout 2: Does Globalization Help the Poor?
Handout 3: Migrants: Pawns in Mexico - U. S. Game
Handout 4: This Alien Life: Privatized Pisons For Immigrants
Handout 5: Prison Economics Help Drive Arizona Immigration Law

Week Four: Security, Enforcement and Human Rights

Announcement:  All are invited to come to a meeting to discuss our feedback to the UUA regarding this study guide and this topic on Monday Feb. 21, FUS, 7:00, Heritage Room

Goals

• to get a glimpse of the enormity of the human suffering caused by the U.S.' enforcement-only immigration policy
• To consider how human rights are protected (or not)

Learning Objectives

• Understand the cost of our enforcement-only immigration policy, in terms of money, lives and human rights
• Understand the porcess by which immigration has become criminalized over time
• Understand the relationship between state and local authorities and the federal governments's immigration enforcement agency.

Handouts for Week Four:

4.1 Militarization of the Border
4.2 What Happens When a Town Implodes?
4.3 Housing Immigration Detainees in a Prison
4.4 Hazing Arizona - Sheriff Arpaio and the 287 (g) agreement
4.5 Mahmod's Story -  Family Torn Apart

Week Three: The Economics of (Im)migration

Immigration protest is in the news here.  Read the Star Tribune article, 1/21/11, about the firing of workers at 50 Minnesota restaurants resulting in a protest.    Chipotle fires hundreds, draws protest

According to one protest organizer, Greg Nammacher, "Companies all over this country are using immigrant labor, and then, when the government shines a light on those employees, the companies wash their hands of them."  He is not accusing Chipotle or any other companies of deliberately employing illegal workers. 

The learning objectives for week three are:

• Understand the economic forces that drive immigration
• Understand the deleterious effects forced low-wage labor had on the working conditions of everyone who works in the U. S., both with documentation and without

Handouts for Week Three

• Shop 'til you drop on a Mexican wage (Why the desperation to come here?)
• NAFTA and Immigration (to read more on this topic; The Children of NAFTA by David Bacon) (NAFTA backfired on workers in both countries)
• Effect on Worker Conditions
• Immigration Myths and Facts  (to read more; They Take Our Jobs and 20 other myths about immigration by Aviva Chomsky)

The History of Immigration in the U.S.

Handout 2.1 A Native American Perspective on Immigration
In handout 2.1, the author talks about a television commercial that starts with “an image of white people, then it moved on to African Americans, Latinos and finally Asians.” In many ways, the ad mirrors the narrative that is taught in our U.S. history classes. What are the assumptions underlying this version of history? From whose perspective is it being told? How might a Native American tell the story? An African American? A Latino/a American?

Handout 2.2 Story from the Tohono O'odham Nation
This story gives meaning to the phrase "we didn't cross the border, the border crossed us."

Handout 2.3 Brief Primer on U.S. - Mexican History
Why didn't we annex Mexico?  Because they are not white - had nothing to do with being morally wrong.
The man who made the strongest case for not annexing Mexico was a Unitarian!

Handout 2.4 10 Historical Anti-Immigrant Quotes That Sound . . . Familiar
An example: "The enormous influx of alien foreigners will in the end prove ruinous to American workingmen, by REDUCING THE WAGES OF LABOR to a standard that will drive them from the farms and workshops althoether." - Opinion article in the Philadelphia Sun, 1854

Handout 2.5 White by Law  Who's white?  Whoever the law says.  It matters if you want to be a citizen.

Handout 2.6 The Flow of History  An annotated time line from 1790 to the U. S. Patriot Act in 2001.

Question for the week.  It used to be law that one had to be recognized as “white” to be “American.” Since that is no longer the case, what does it mean to be “American”? What are the attributes?

Welcome to the FUS Immigration Discussion!

Issue - Migration of people - driven by economic, social, political and environmental factors - is taking place around the world.  Millions are currently in transit, in refugee camps, in detention centers, or living and working in places without full legal status and without access to social services or protection of civil rights.

Grounding in Unitarian Universalism - The dignity of all the world's peoples is core to UU principles and values.  Given the justice-oriented nature of UU faith, UUs are called to be leaders in the struggle for immigrant and refugee righrs, and to view immigration not only as a legal issue but also moral issue.

Topics for Study

• What are the definitions of refugee, migrant, permanent resident, citizen, non-immigrant, and undocumented and documented immigrants?
• What international bodies are accountable for the welfare of migrants and refugees?  Are these bodies effective?
• Is international law concerning migrants and refugees (mainly the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Conventions) adequate for people seeking asylum in a current context?
• What underlying factors contribute to global migration?  And where are we complicit or accountable in these factors?
• Should there be complete global freedom of movement on migrants?
• What is theeconomic impact of immigration on countries and on individuals?
• For what reasons are immigrants arrested and incarcerated?  And once incarcerated, how are individuals and families treated in detention centers?
• What are our positions on the enforcement of national boundaries?
• Who are the immmigrants in our communities?
• What are the myths and realities regarding immigrants?
• What role do racism, hate and intolerance play in driving immigration and enforcement policies?
• Are there ways that immigrants enrich the social fabric of the country in which they settle and in particular the United States?
• Using UU principles and values, what would be a just an humane immigration policy?

Based on handouts 1.1 and 1.2 address the following questions:

• What are the different reasons for why people migrate/immigrate?
• What is the difference between a refugee, a migrant, and an immigrant?
• Should any of these classes be given automatic entry into the U.S.?
• If some should while others should not, what is the basis for the distinction?
• What kind of rights do people have when they are forced to migrate?
• What kind of rights do people have when they migrate voluntarily?

More handouts!
1.3. The legalities of legal immigration
1.4. What part of legal immigration don't you understand?
1.5. What part of illegal immigration don't you understand?