ColorOfChange.org changing the color of democracy

President Obama vowed to make immigration reform one of the chief priorities of his second term. Today, ColorOfChange launched a campaign to ensure that this reform includes a roadmap to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented Americans, and doesn't further fuel the rapid growth of the prison-industrial complex. 

The Black community has a huge stake in shaping the immigration narrative. Although Black immigrants constitute a small percentage of the U.S. immigrant population, they are always in the top ten of most-deported foreign nationals and have the highest per capita deportation level of any other racial group. For Black immigrants, the harmful realities of xenophobia are compounded with the effects of racism and discrimination. 

The "Gang of Eight" has an opportunity to write immigration reform that responds to the needs of everyone. Read the email we sent to our members after the jump, and join our campaign here. And when you do, be sure to pass it on to friends and family. 

After being recognized as a Champion of Change by President Obama, Hadiyah Charles, a New York City health advocate, was arrested in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn this past summer. Charles attempted to use her smartphone to film two NYC police officers stopping and frisking Black teenagers. 

After being shoved and antagonized by police officers during the incident, Charles has served the New York Police Department (NYPD) with a civil rights lawsuit.

This year, NYC has seen a reported 34% decrease in the number of New Yorkers fallen victim to the NYPD's discriminatory Stop and Frisk policing tactic. But there's still work to be done. We know that 86 percent of the nearly 340,000 stops made in the first 6 months of 2012 involved Blacks or Latinos. ColorOfChange Executive Director Rashad Robinson recently sat down with Ebony Magazine to explain the organization's multifaceted approach to take down the NYPD's oppressive Stop and Frisk program:

"One, there hasn’t been a strong enough movement to take it on. We’re moving in that direction now. Two, there hasn’t been enough embarrassment placed on elected officials who support Stop and Frisk through their silence thus allowing it to continue. The police---not only in New York City, but around the country---have a lot of power over elected officials in cities. They’ve been able to control how politicians stand up on this issue. For us, at Color of Change, we believe all of these folks are accountable. We’re going to continue to do a variety of things to hold folks accountable who continue to support Stop and Frisk or through their silence they support Stop and Frisk."