Fenway teacher - there is something we can do!

If you want to know more about just how messed up this whole situation is read a good concise article at http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=504775&page=1. If you were mad about the immigration system before, you'll be even more mad.....

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This is grassroots mobilization at it's best! Just received this from
someone on our list!

My fellow activists,

I learned about this situation on Monday of this week. Today I met with Obain and a group of students who have been working on this issue for more than a year. They are down to the wire but still committed enough that they were willing to come into school at 10am on a vacation day to work with me on devising an organizing strategy for the next week.

I met Obain and heard from his students, and I can say that I really
believe this is a worthy and doable cause. If you want to know more about just how messed up this whole situation is read a good concise article at http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=504775&page=1. If you were mad about the immigration system before, you'll be even more mad after.

So let's get straight to the organizing strategy.

There are 2 people that have the power to overturn this deportation
decision:

1. Bruce Chadbourne, the New England Regional Director of Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (what was once the INS)

2. Micheal Chertoff, the new head of the Department of Homeland
Security

The students have done a lot of work to target Chadbourne, but so far
he has said that he is not willing to to overturn the decision of a
judge, and we don't think he wants to take any controversial decisions on his shoulders. So we need to continue pressuring Chadbourne, but we have to take the fight straight to Chertoff.

Our Message:
This is not just about Obain, this is about taking a great teacher away from students who need him. He is a special education teacher working in the inner city to teach math to students. Taking him away from this school strips our school system of exactly the kind of teacher we should be fighting to keep in schools. Don't leave his students behind.


Here's what you can do:

1. Friday and Saturday - We will produce flyers, petitions and fact
sheets that you can use to organize on your campus or in your community. Since we are taking this to a national figure, you can send the petition wherever and have them send it Chertoff's office.

2. Saturday- We would like people to take the petitions to their
synagogues. Chertoff is Jewish and he was in Boston for 7 years attending Harvard so we are hoping that someone in the Jewish community knows him. We might be stabbing in the dark and we are doing deeper research, but our hope is that we will land on someone who he was connected to.

3. Sunday - We will take the petitions to local churches. We know that this administration listens more accutely to the faith communities, so we will try to get them on our side.

4. Monday - Petitioning. At this point we have small capacity, but with more volunteers we would hit more spots in Boston.

5. If you want to help plan actions for next week. Get in touch with us at the e-mail- donttakeourteacher@yahoo.com

6. IF YOU GO TO HARVARD, Chertoff when there for undergrad and law
school. We are looking to have Harvard students organize specifically to contact him as an alum. Again e-mail us at donttakeourteacher@yahoo.com to get more information.

I think that is all until we finish the flyers, but I really hope that people will get involved. We may not overturn the anti-immigration laws in this country or bring back civil liberties, but we can put a line in the sand on how what we won't stand for.


Thanks for your interest and I look forward to your involvement,

Mariama White-Hammond
Project HIP-HOP, Boston