Dear Casa San José Amigos,
Welcome back to our weekly message! Here’s what’s new:
HELP:
NEWS:
HELP:
- We are working with the foster care services at Pressley Ridge. They are in great need of Hispanic or bilingual families that have room in their home and in their hearts to foster a Hispanic youth. If you can do this, please call or email: Gigi D'Amico, Pressley Ridge Treatment Foster Care - Hispanic Campaign - ldamico@pressleyridge.org - 412.583.2195. (More info. in letter attachment.)
- Volunteers needed! On Sunday Jan. 7, the Feast of the Three Kings celebration will happen at St. Catherine's Church. Bakers will work through the night to create the traditional Rosca de Reyes cakes for the event and we need help cleaning up before noon. If you can do this, please email Sister Valerie at srvalerie@casasanjose.org.
- This is happening right now: since Trump terminated DACA on Sept. 5, every day hundreds of young people - the Dreamers - lose their protection against deportation - over 11,000 so far, and about 800,000 await. Their only hope is for Congress to pass a clean Dream Act (defined here.) There is an opportunity now for Democratic legislators to insist on passing the Dream Act as part of the final December spending bill (the "continuing resolution") by Dec. 22. Please call your Members of Congress and tell them: Do not go home for the holidays before passing the Dream Act! Here's a quick easy way to do it from the ACLU. Here's another from United We Dream, NILC, and others.
- On Wednesday, Dec. 6, at 6:30 a.m. we filled a bus with 90 demonstrators to be in the March on Washington for DACA and TPS. We joined many, many others at the US Capitol Building to demand protection for Dreamers and immigrants with Temporary Protected Status. Plus we had the most amazing signs (see above.) A big thank you to the Fair Immigration Reform Movement for donating the bus!
- Generous friends at St. Thomas More Church have donated over 100 individually selected gifts for the young people in our 3 youth programs: Beechwood Elementary, Bridges to the Future, and Brashear High School. They arrived beautifully wrapped!
SUGGESTED if you'd like to see or hear more:
- Indivisible: Love Knows No Borders - award-winning documentary about a trio of Dreamers fighting to bring their families - and all immigrant families - back together.
- The Butterfly Story Collective Podcast - stories told by immigrants, many of them Dreamers, about the immigrant experience today in the United States. See also their videos, poems, art, music, etc. on their Facebook page. Produced by the National Immigration Law Center.
(Earlier messages can be found here.)
