Feature Archives

On Wednesday 11/19/2003, 100 people gathered in front of the San Francisco BICE (INS) Building in support of a noontime press conference to protest the beginning of the special re-registrations of immigrants from mainly Muslim countries.
Last year, special registrations meant humiliation, detentions and brutality for many of the nearly 90,000 who registered. In the end, about 13,000 faced deportation proceedings—yet not a single “suspected terrorist” was among them. Now these same people are being persecuted again.
San Francisco's protest was one of many that happened nationally, including New York City.
Photos | Video:1 2 3

6/18/04: As Newsom continues shifting money away from workers and low-income San Franciscans, cutting welfare and services, he refuses to address the massive tax theft by corporations and downtown big business. City Hall shaves budgets by a few million here or there, but ignores the billions of revenue owed by these power brokers. The denial of funds to DLP, along with escalating INS raids in San Francisco (supposedly a “sanctuary city” from immigration raids), represent two of the main strategies of the war against immigrants: major cuts of social spending, along with increasing state repression and violence against communities of color.

Organizations like the Day Labor Program are in the heart of resistance to the war at home. Fighting the economic and police repression of immigrants here in San Francisco is an integral piece of fighting Bush & Co.'s plan for world takeover. Bush's “endless war” relies on the money stolen from immigrants and other workers. It also rests on the continuing racist denial of the humanity and civil rights of targeted peoples at home and abroad.
6/18 - Photos from Protest | Report | 6/23 - Rally against ICE/INS Raids in the Mission | Photos | Archived Day Labor Program coverage

Delfin and Angelita Cuevas arrived as tourists to the US in 1984-85 along with their three young children (all six years old and under), Donna, Dale and Dominique. Mr. and Mrs. Cuevas decided to settle in Fremont, CA to leave behind the economic and political turmoil of the Philippines, eventually buying a home there. Donna recently graduated with a Psychology degree from Cal State University, Hayward. Dale and Dominique are students of San Jose State University. In 1996, learning that immigration law would soon change, Mr. and Mrs. Cuevas filed for asylum with the hope of being referred to an immigration judge before the new law, Clinton’s Illegal Immigration and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIIRA) took effect on April 1, 1997. Because thousands of other immigrant families did the same, the Cuevas family found itself caught in the backlog and therefore subject to the new law. Their appeals were repeatedly dismissed, the final appeal being dismissed in December 2003. Delfin Cuevas was a member of SEIU Local 1000 up until April 2004, when he was forced to quit his job.

For several months, the Cuevas' Support Committee has been demanding that local congressional representatives introduce personal legislation for the Cuevas family, allowing them to legalize their status as permanent residents, and that legislators redress the nation's unjust, anti-family immigration laws and policies. Senators Feinstein and Boxer have both so far refused to act. "It's going to take a miracle (to stay)," says Dale Cuevas. Cuevas family supporters held a candlelight vigil on the evening of Wednesday, June 23rd in San Francisco, at the Citizenship and Immigration Services Field Office. Previous reports on the Cuevas family: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Waking from the American Dream