3rd Annual National Strategy Session to End Criminalization, Incarceration, & Immigration Enforcement [MAY 3-5, 2015]
In the last months of 2014 people flooded the streets demanding justice, and like a river overflowing after a storm, people were unstoppable. The cold-blooded police killings of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and another black person every 28 hours, erupted a rage across the country.
In the midst of executive action on immigration, other developments of state violence fell under the current—the largest expansion of family detention since the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, an explicit targeting of immigrants with convictions, and a violent reincarnation of the Secure Communities immigration enforcement program (now PEP) went largely unnoticed. In Mexico 43 young activists were executed by the collaboration between the Government and the Drug Cartels.
In response, thousands of people have taken the streets. The outpouring of protests has not stopped. And the forecast reads that yet another wave is coming.
State and corporate repression has increased as a result. Police are their dams, trying to contain and redirect people’s dignified rage. State police and corporate police are everywhere: in schools, on buses, in stores, and even undercover in community spaces and churches. If you are a person of color or immigrant, police encounters either take your life or land you in prison. The police funneling of people of color into cages is a key tactic for the state and corporations for social control. But their dams will not stop this flow of righteous anger and visionary love.
The for-profit Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) provides the perfect vehicle to violently exploit, abuse, profit off and control communities of color and immigrants, and it is expanding. 1 in 3 black men already have a cage waiting for them. Drug and immigration offenses are landing an ever increasing number of people behind bars. So-called “Alternatives” to Detention and Prison are actually expansions: sending people home with electric shackles and intensive surveillance creates a prison at your home and community. The drug war that allowed 43 Mexican students to perish while Government and cartels in partnership got richer and more powerful, is very similar to the one between US politicians and multinational corporations, who together sanction the execution of young people of color and immigrants.
Many are already organizing communities to defend themselves in this war. Incredible campaign work in immigrant rights, police brutality, racial justice and criminal justice movements continue to gain ground. State violence against communities of color is unified, and to create a liberatory future and present, we must be unified across race and issue lines in our organizing and strategy. The Prison Divestment Campaign Steering Committee invites you to participate in a national convening to take the fight against criminalization, incarceration, and immigration enforcement to the next level. Be part of an effort to build a multiracial alliance and create proactive campaign strategies.
Join us this May 3-5 2015 in Miami, Florida! REGISTER TODAY
For more information visit the Enlace website.
Prison Industry Divestment Movement 