Immigrant Justice Organizers Get Involved


Recently, the Immigrant Justice organizing interns attended two events. On Friday, June 18th, we went to action with the NC DREAM Team at UNC-Chapel Hill where Senator Kay Hagan was the keynote speaker for a luncheon hosted by Action for Children, an organization that works to benefit the education of all children in North Carolina. We hoped to get Senator Hagan to support and co-sponsor the DREAM Act. While she did hold a brief meeting with the young women on a hunger strike, she still refused to support the bill. Later that day, we joined activists and allies at Senator Hagan’s office hours in speaking to her about the DREAM Act and immigration reform.
These two meetings turned out to be the only opportunities that the activists had to meet with Sen. Hagan over the span of their two-week hunger strike. Although this day was seemingly frustrating, Hagan has since released a statement saying, “I believe the Dream Act should be considered in the context of comprehensive immigration reform.”
On Saturday, we led a “Know Your Rights” training in Zebulon at a Latino church which has been targeted for police checkpoints scheduled during church services. We had adapted some aspects of the training based on the previous one held in Winston-Salem and found the changes to be more interactive. The congregation had plenty of questions for staff attorney Marty Rosenbluth about their rights and the state of immigration enforcement. Towards the end of the presentation, the focus shifted to organizing for immigrant justice and the level of energy reflected the need for reform.