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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (May 18, 2016)
May 18, 2016 Page 7 O PINION Hope is Waiting for the Supreme Court Speaking up for our brothers and sisters M arian W right e delMan The futures of mil- lions of immigrant families are on hold un- til the Supreme Court makes a decision in U.S. v. Texas expect- ed in June. Texas and 25 other states iled a lawsuit in February 2015 to block President Obama’s November 2014 executive action to help keep immigrant families together. The Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) and Lawful Permanent Residents and expand- ed Deferred Action for Child- hood Arrivals (DACA) initiatives would help parents and young adults remain in the country tem- porarily to work, further their ed- ucation, and support their families The story of Baldo who came to the United States from Mexi- co in 1988 when he was 17 years old and who lives in Pasadena, Calif. with his wife and their two U.S. citizen daughters is docu- mented in one of the nine friend of the court briefs iled on behalf of more than 1,000 organizations and individuals supporting the president’s executive actions. The Children’s Defense Fund joined 75 other education, health by and child advocacy organizations in one of these briefs. The Na- tional Immigration Law Center says the multiple briefs in this case “demonstrate the severe, na- tionwide harm — to millions of individual families, to the safety of our communities, and to local and national eco- nomic well-being — pro- duced by the injunction barring implementation of the Obama administra- tion’s DAPA and expand- ed DACA programs.” The deferred action order would allow immigrant parents like Baldo, with citizen children, to seek protection from deporta- tion, get a work permit, and keep their families together. The brief shares more about his story: “Baldo’s inancial dif- iculties are compounded by his fear of being forced to return to Michoacán, Mexico, where he has not lived in nearly 30 years. He has heard from family mem- bers about kidnappings and oth- er drug cartel-related violence, and would not feel safe returning to Michoacán. Given the risk of harm, he would not want to take his daughters there, but he also would not want to be separated from them.” An estimated 16 million peo- ple in the United States have mixed-status families like Bal- do’s. One in ive undocumented immigrant adults have a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resi- dent spouse and about 3.8 million undocumented immigrants have children who are U.S. citizens. Deportation can result not only in separation of children from a parent but also food insecurity, challenges in accessing health care, housing instability, and sometimes entry of children into foster care. Families lose the i- nancial stability provided by their formerly employed parent and the local economy suffers lower tax revenue. The very real threat of a parent’s removal is causing millions of U.S. citizen and law- ful permanent resident children emotional, psychological, and educational harm. DAPA would allow a parent like Baldo to return to his former job and stay with his family for at least three years without fear of deportation, with the opportunity for renewal. By expanding DACA, the De- partment of Homeland Security would offer deferred action to more young people brought to the United States as children before their 16th birthday. They must have continuously lived in the U.S. since January 2010 and ev- ery day since Aug. 15, 2012, have a high school diploma or equiva- lent, or be in school. They would have access to important educa- tional opportunities, internships and career and vocation training and have better chances of new jobs and increased earnings. The state of Texas’ injunction pre- vents an estimated 290,000 peo- ple brought to the country as chil- dren from applying for DACA. Qualifying for these tempo- rary, renewable deportation de- ferrals requires people to meet a variety of requirements and pass a criminal background check. In recognition of the beneits for children and families and the eco- nomic future of our country, there is very broad support for DAPA and expanded DACA. Sixteen states and the District of Colum- bia; 116 cities and counties, along with the National League of Cities and the U.S. Conference of May- ors; 51 current and former chiefs of police and sheriffs and the Major Cities Chiefs Association and Police Executive Research Forum; 326 immigrants’ rights, civil rights, labor, and social ser- vice organizations; a bipartisan group of former members of Con- gress; 225 current U.S. senators and representatives; and former federal immigration and Home- land Security oficials have iled friend of the court briefs in the Supreme Court. Let all of us break our silence and speak up about the suffering of our sisters and brothers whose family members are at risk of be- ing torn apart by deportation. Marian Wright Edelman is president of the Children’s De- fense Fund. Nonviolence Superior to Violence in Every Way Consider the research and all the costs t oM h. h astings I teach and write in the ield of Peace and Conlict Studies, with a special focus on stra- tegic nonviolence. It is a rich ield, growing in its scholarship and its widespread usage. I’m so enthused by this— the more we wage our conlicts with nonviolence the lower the costs. Counting the costs of conlict, we normally think of blood and treasure, of casualties and ex- pense. We are slowly beginning to also count other costs, includ- ing our environment, our relation- ships, our civil rights, our human rights, our metrics of democracy, and more. Nonviolence is superi- or to violence in every way if we by read the research and consider all the costs. Nonviolence can fail, of course, and in the most robust of strug- gles—trying to overthrow a dic- tator, for example—nonviolent struggle only works about 53 percent of the time. Of course violent insurgency only succeeds 26 percent of the time, about half as often as does nonvio- lence. This is disturbing to those who deine rev- olution as violent. I hope they get over it. Wake up and smell the lowers instead of the cordite. One secret to nonviolent suc- cess is communication. When we are quiet the injustices we see or suffer are allowed to continue. When we are aggressive—vio- lent or demeaning, threatening, and insulting—that strengthens the resolve of the opponent and progress is unlikely. The best path to victory is assertion—visualize a thin bright line between you and the oppressor. Shrink back from the line and nothing chang- es. Charge over the line and all defenses spring into counter-ag- gression, counterattack. But go up to the line with insistent civil as- sertion, creative and resilient, and your chances for winning your objectives are radically increased. These principles are basic, but ignored all too often, as we see in many conlicts domestic and trans- national, in families and work- places, in neighborhoods and in towns, in regions and states. The destructive, adversarial conlicts that result are often heartbreaking to observe. From a belligerent North Kore- an dictator to a misogynist Donald Trump, the results are not impres- sive. Ruling over others is a poor path to sustainable gains and do- ing so in an aggressive manner will only generate pushback. If that resistance is civil but insis- tent, assertive but not aggressive, it can achieve what no one thought possible. If I had predicted publicly in 1985 that the Philippines would see Marcos deposed without a single ired shot, that the Ber- lin Wall would fall in a massive nonviolent uprising, that Nelson Mandela would be liberated and apartheid would end without a widely predicted bloodbath, that Pinochet would fall in Chile to mass nonviolent power, and that Slobodan Milosevic would cre- ate horriic wars in the Balkans but would be deposed by nonvi- olence, I might have been diag- nosed as delusional. These cases and 1,000 more are chronicled in a Swarthmore database that is growing con- stantly. We are humans—we have great big brains that are hard- wired for all possible responses, from violent to nonviolent, which makes us the unique species neu- rologically capable of ininite, illimitable choice. Let’s be wise about it. Dr. Tom H. Hastings is found- ing director of PeaceVoice. 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