Follow at: @dreamteam_la Like at: /dreamteamlosangeles Email us: media@dreamteamla.org
PRESS RELEASE Media inquiries: media@dreamteamla.org
For immediate release: Saturday, October 5, 2013
We Did it! Gov. Brown Signs the TRUST Act. DREAM Team Los Angeles Celebrates!
DREAM Team Los Angeles celebrates on Sunday, October 6, 2013, for Gov. Jerry Brown signed the TRUST Act, the first step to ending police and ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) collaborations in California. Becoming a victim of, or reporting a crime will no longer be a pathway to deportation for our state’s residents. The law will severely restrict law enforcement’s ability to hand over nonviolent inmates to immigration authorities including those who have been arrested and have their charges later dropped.
“It is our position that no state, county, city, or local agency should ever be a part of a federal deportation process. We know the case of a young woman who applied for a marriage license at the county courthouse and her boyfriend ended up on an ICE hold, a hold that wouldn’t exist if we had the TRUST Act.” – Kevin Solis, Organizer with DREAM Team Los Angeles
Law enforcement agencies across the nation have decried policies and laws that turn them into de facto immigration agents. They know communities are safer when people trust their local police.
The TRUST Act was also supported by former Director of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano who urged Gov. Brown to sign it, in effect repudiating her agency’s own Secure Communities Program which mandated that police forward to ICE the fingerprints of all people arrested. The agency’s own statistics show that the majority of people deported have committed no crime and many others fall short of their own criteria for who is a deportable priority.
The TRUST Act was part of a series of bills the governor signed to provide relief for California’s immigrant residents. “While Washington waffles on immigration, California’s forging ahead. I’m not waiting.” Brown said in a statement.
DREAM Team Los Angeles will now take their successful Stop the ICE Monster (stoptheicemonster.org) campaign to a national level and end family separations. President Obama will soon deport the 2 millionth person since he took office. No amount of immigration reform legislation will stop ICE from arresting people and taking parents from their children. ICE must be confronted directly. It will become a state-by-state fight.
Celebrate with DREAM Team Los Angeles
Sunday, October 6, 2013 at 10:00am
Clean Car Wash Campaign Headquarters, 516 W. Vernon Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90037
People directly affected by this legislation will be available for media interview.
###