BAMN is building a movement to win legal status for all immigrants in the United States and to end to the second-class status accorded particularly to immigrants from Mexico. One aspect of this campaign is to make a both a legal and a public fight to win legal status for particular individuals.
You can help advance this struggle by signing the letter below.
To: USCIS, US Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS):
We call on the USCIS, US Dept of Justice, and DHS to grant Alfredo Avila-Mendez, Francisco Romero-Caspeta, Juan Manuel Pedraza-Metal and Pedro Avila-Ramirez “withholding of removal” and the right to remain in the United States legally with their U.S. Citizen families.
Alfredo, Francisco, Juan and Pedro chose lawyers with the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) to represent them in these Asylum/Withholding of Removal Procedures because we need leaders and an organization to build the immigrant rights/civil rights movement in order to win our cases, stop the deportations and win citizenship for the 13 million undocumented people, mostly Mexicans, who are living, working, going to school here and contributing to our society.
Alfredo, Francisco, Juan and Pedro are Mexican citizens with U.S. citizen children, wives and other family members and friends here. They came to the United States, and have resided in the Metro-Detroit Area for many years to escape persecution by the drug cartels that have literally overtaken their home towns in Mexico and have replaced the government and businesses that once existed with murderous gangs that deal in drugs, kidnapping, sex trafficking and extortion.
These are all law-abiding men who are morally and politically unwilling to become criminals by working for the cartels, and will face persecution, torture and death if they are returned to Mexico and do not join the cartels.
They have no one and nowhere to go to in Mexico outside of the towns they grew up in, which are now completely dominated by the drug cartels.
Several years ago, Alfredo was kidnapped by a gang and held captive for a month while his American wife was extorted for money to set him free.
While in captivity he witnessed things that would cause him to be killed should he be returned to Mexico, such as young girls being held prisoner for the sex trade. Twice he was assaulted in public areas in broad daylight and brutally beaten for simply not being a member of the gang controlling the town. Alfredo’s brother-in-law was kidnapped, had nails hammered into his hands and feet and was brutally beaten in the face. He, like many others, now does not leave his parents’ house out of fear of abduction.
The domination of the cartels and decay of Mexican society is in large part the consequence of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Act enacted in 1994, which went into full force in 2008.
NAFTA has destroyed Mexico’s economy by overwhelming it with products from better capitalized American corporations, leaving an economic vacuum that has been filled by the cartels. The American public is largely shielded from knowledge of the harsh realities in Mexico today, but the USCIS, US Dept of Justice, and DHS, which make the decisions regarding immigration, are well aware of the horrific and inhumane conditions these men will face if they are deported from the United States and forced to return to Mexico.
Currently, the U.S. government hypocritically and discriminatorily grants asylum and withholding of removal to citizens of countries whose governments are deemed “enemies” of the U.S., while denying it to Mexicans, who face persecution in their home country which the U.S. government finds it expedient to ignore. These men and thousands like them should be granted “withholding of removal” – a status similar to asylum based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that “Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.”
Amnesty now for all immigrants – no more second-class citizenship! Grant withholding of removal to Alfredo, Francisco, Juan and Pedro!
SIGN HERE!
