Today marks one week since Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed the extremist and hateful Arizona SB 1070 into law. When I heard the news, just like many of you, I felt saddened and disgusted.  As a former undocumented immigrant, I could all too well imagine the fear gripping entire families. As a person of color, I shuddered to think of the onslaught of police harassment and racial profiling the law will bring about.

What happened to our values of human rights, fairness, and equality?

The tremendous outpouring of action over the last week against this unjust law shows that those values are alive and well. But we have to fight for them. If we stand together, we can beat back the nightmare in Arizona and advance our dreams of living in a country where freedom and equality are a reality for all who are here. Will you join us?

March for immigrant rights in Oakland!
1:00 pm - 2:00pm Rally at Fruitvale BART Plaza
2:00 pm - March to Frank Ogawa Plaza, 14th and Broadway (note change)

Join us Saturday to send a powerful message to Congress:

Yes! to reform that moves our communities forward together!

No! to discriminatory laws like SB1070 that divide our communities!

Compassionate immigration reform - including a fair pathway to citizenship - is essential to economic recovery and building shared prosperity to all. Legalizing undocumented immigrants would strengthen the bargaining power of all workers and could pump $1.5 trillion to our economy over the next decade.

EBASE endorses boycott of Arizona!

This is not a decision we make lightly. SB 1070 is unparalleled in recent US history: to avoid arrest, even citizens will have to carry their papers on them at all times. The law creates a perverse mandate for police to racially profile. Not to mention that it absolutely shatters any trust between immigrant communities and local authorities. And to make matters worse, "copy cat" proposals are being talked about from Texas to Costa Mesa. We have got to put our collective foot down.

Please consider joining this online action.

As a final reflection: let's remember the moving words of Rev. Dr. J. Alfred Smith Jr, of Oakland's Allen Temple Baptist Church at last month's press conference co-organized by EBASE's Interfaith Committee, BAJI, and ICU of EBHO:

"I can't help but being drawn to our founding document, where those who were assembled and put their names on the document, declared that we have been endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights. Among those rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These rights are inalienable. They can't be taken away from us. They cannot be made alien from us, and we cannot be made aliens from these rights. ....

Liberty – meaning that no one should have to flee with government chasing after them for cards of authorization to be here.”

Amen.

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