  Our mission is to support the rights of immigrants and their families, giving priority to those who live or work on the Olympic Peninsula and immigrant detainees within Washington State, through access to legal services, standing witness, family support, community education and advocacy for local, state and national issues.
________________________________________________________________________ Upcoming Events!! Tuesday, Nov. 19, 4:30-6pm, JCIRA Monthly Meeting Agenda will include election of new JCIRA Board Members (see box below for more info). Members can also vote by emailing their vote to jcirawa@gmail.com by 11/18. ________________________________________________________________________ In Case You Missed It... (Highlights from JCIRA's monthly mtg in October)
JCIRA Board Elections More info about the board, if you are interested: Each board member serves staggered two-year terms. There are 7- 12 board members and so each year about half of the board rotates off the board or may run for re-election. We advertised the upcoming elections and solicited for candidates through our newsletter and at our general meetings. We have six candidates for the six open positions, so none of the positions is contested this year. New Board Member Officers will begin their terms in January of 2020. If you are interested in being considered for the Board in the future, please let us know! ________________________________________________________________________ Get Involved! If you've been wondering how JCIRA supporters can help respond to an ICE or BP event here in Jefferson County, take this Rapid Response online training. It will give you the basics, and then we can fill in a few details that show the slight local variations that JCIRA uses. Unfortunately, this conflicts with the JCIRA monthly meeting, but may be worth choosing over the meeting if you are interested in becoming a member of our Rapid Response Team. Rapid Response Network Training Tuesday, November 19 5-7 PM Register for online training at: https://actionnetwork.org/forms/waisn-rapid-response-webinar-trainings The above Training will be facilitated by Monserrat Padilla from Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network (WAISN) The Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network's - Rapid Response Network (RRN) is a community defense project developed to protect immigrant & refugee communities from deportation threats and to provide support during and after a community member’s arrest or detention. JCIRA is part of the WAISN Rapid Response network. For more information contact Jean: jmwalat@gmail.com. ________________________________________________________________________ Retrial of Scott Warren Set for Nov. 12th in Tucson Scott Warren is a 36-year-old aid worker with the Tucson-based humanitarian group No More Deaths/No Mas Muertes. Warren was indicted on one count of conspiring to smuggle two Central American men in January 2018 and two counts of harboring them at a structure in Ajo known as The Barn that is used as a staging area for humanitarian aid efforts. He testified he leaves water and food for cross-border migrants in the treacherous deserts near Ajo. He also searches for migrants in distress and has recovered 18 sets of human remains believed to belong to migrants. His trial in June of this year resulted in a hung jury split of 8-4 leading to a retrial set to begin on November 12th. What follows is a letter sent by his parents, In one week, our son Scott will face federal charges for the third time this year for his humanitarian efforts along our southwest border. He has already stood trial on federal misdemeanor charges for putting water in the desert and on federal felony charges for offering food, water & clothes to two migrants from Central America. He is now being re-tried on the felony charges because in June a jury failed to reach a verdict in his case. We want to invite everyone who has stood with our son over the past year to join us on Sunday, November 10th at 1pm MST for a webinar hosted by No More Deaths/No Mas Muertes. This webinar will give you the tools to clearly and concisely talk with your community about our son's case and why the criminalization of aid work poses a grave threat to our democracy. Register here. Additionally, if you are outraged about the government's ongoing prosecution of aid workers in the midst of a crisis of death and disappearance, we invite you to write an op ed or letter to the editor and to post on social media during his trial. ________________________________________________________________________ OTHER NEWS 1. Most Major Banks Divesting from Private Prisons and Detention Centers The American Friends Service Committee (The Quakers) reports "In a remarkable development, almost all major U.S. banks have announced they would stop financing companies that run private prisons and immigration detention centers, particularly the two companies that dominate this industry, CoreCivic and GEO Group." For the AFSC report click here. 2. Good News Department - The New York Times reports research that shows "Immigration to the United States has consistently offered a route to escape poverty — if not for poor immigrants themselves, then for their sons....If the American dream is to give the next generation a better life, it appears that poor immigrants have more reliably achieved that dream than native-born Americans have." Click here for the NYT article. |
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