10 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2015
UFW Foundation and Kern Coalition for Citizenship Leaders Join in National Actions to Demand the 5th Circuit Court to Rule on Administrative Relief
5th Circuit Judges are Functionally Acting as Puppets of Anti-Immigrant Efforts
Bakersfield, CA – The United Farm Workers Foundation alongside the Kern Coalition for Citizenship will support, in solidarity, immigrant families, who are participating in “The Fast to Keep Families Together” – a powerful nine-day fast and vigil that started on Wednesday, Oct. 14th outside the courthouse in New Orleans to demand the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to rule on administrative relief. The administrative relief programs (DACA+ and DAPA) could keep families, many of them farm working families, together and provide them with temporary protections.
Kern County constituents will stand outside the newly built Mesa Verde Detention Center to highlight the harmful anti-immigrant sentiments that have allowed detention facilities to exist in immigrant powered downtowns like Bakersfield and that have fueled the delay of the expanded version of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA). With more than a year delay of a response to President Obama’s administrative relief, thousands of families are torn apart every day. Leaving farm workers, a sense of instability that once they leave to work, they may not return to their families because of deportation. Anti- Immigrant efforts are playing politics with the courts while people’s lives and our American values are put on hold.
Activists will reiterate the Golden Rule that only weeks ago, Pope Francis shared with Congress: "Let us seek for others the same possibilities which we seek for ourselves. Let us help others to grow, as we would like to be helped ourselves."
“We should not leave farm workers and other hardworking immigrants, a sense of instability that once they leave to work, they may not return to their families because of deportation. The courts should not be playing politics while people’s lives and our American values are put on hold,” said Diana Tellefson Torres, Executive Director of the UFW Foundation. “Currently, there’s millions that have been waiting for this administrative relief. They’ve waited long enough and we, as their allies, refuse to wait any longer."
WHO: United Farm Workers Foundation and the Kern Coalition for Citizenship
WHAT: “The Fast to Keep Families Together”- Press Conference in solidarity of the 9 Days of Fast and Vigil.
WHEN: Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2015. Press Conference 10 a.m. PST
WHERE: Mesa Verde Detention Center, 425 Golden State Ave, Bakersfield, CA 93301